While the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been overwhelmingly condemned by the churches of the world, the support of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) for the war poses difficult questions to the ecumenical community: in particular whether the church's support for the war and the extreme nationalist policies of President Putin constitue grounds = as Rowan Williams for example has argued - for suspending it from the World Council of Churches (WCC) and other ecumenical bodies. The current ecumenical emphasis upon 'dialogue' acts as a deterrent to such action, but the WCC describes itself as a fellowship of churches that 'confess Christ as God and saviour' and therefore supreme over all other authorities. By it's explicit and total support for this aggressive war, disregarding all international codes and obligations, the leadership of the ROC has in this instance evidently denied the supremacy of Christ and the supreme authority. There are parallels with previous episodes in ecumenical history, most particularly 1930s Germany and the challenge to the ecumenical movement, posed by the confessing church, to refuse recognition of the Reich Church. As part of the ecumenical family, while dialogue has it's own importance, the prime ecumenical commitment in situations of conflict and oppression is to confess Christ, whatever the risks of furthering division in the ecumenical family that this incurs.