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The average person in Europe may be having more difficulty coming to terms with the reality of migrants and refugees than ever before, said Maria Mountraki, given how close to home — literally — the influx of people has become.
“As a European, I believe it’s an issue that is very close to us. But it seems it’s now harder to look at in an objective way. That is why we must work harder for migrants and refugees,” says Mountraki, who serves on the World Council of Churches Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA).
Representing the Orthodox Church of Finland, she attended the 53rd meeting of the CCIA at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva on 8-11 March.
On the CCIA, she is on a working group for statelessness and migrants’ rights.
Many question the humaneness of recent decisions made by the European Union for trying to stem the flow of refugees from Turkey to Europe.
Yet many people have continued arriving on European shores in 2016.
As of 18 March, the International Organization for Migration noted that, including sea routes to Spain and the Greek Islands, some 156,000 migrants and refugees had landed in Europe from Africa and the Middle East in the first ten-and-a-half weeks of 2016.
“Some incidents in Europe are pounced upon by populists, but those who care about those arriving are also starting to react,” says Mountraki.
“It is a very hard situation; there is a kind of fixation about it in Europe even though the number of refugees we have is nothing compared to countries such as Lebanon and Turkey.”
Mountraki recently completed her bachelor’s studies in international relations and would now like to do a master’s in theology, religion and conflict studies.
She is currently doing an internship at the Church of Finland’s Council of International Relations and says she may be the first Orthodox intern at the Lutheran institution.
Commission of the Churches on International Affairs
WCC/UN conference calls for coordinated action on refugee crisis (WCC press release of 20 January 2016)
Ecumenical delegation: With winter coming, refugees are in critical need (WCC press release of 19 October 2015)
