
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 29, 1994                   TAG: 9404290153
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B2   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                 LENGTH: Medium

CLERGY PLAN TO SPEAK ON VIOLENCE

Religious leaders, galvanized by the spread of crime throughout the Richmond area, are calling on their colleagues to address violence during services next month.

Driving the ministers, pastors and priests is Richmond's rising murder rate. Fifty-five people have been killed this year, including three since Sunday. By the same time last year, 37 people had been killed out of a 1993 total of 111 murders.

Church leaders meeting Wednesday at the Greek Orthodox cathedral said they want to get the word across that crime and murder affect both black and white people who live in and near Richmond.

``Three years ago, crime was seen as solely a black problem in Richmond. Now it is in both communities,'' said the Rev. C.N. Dombalis, dean of the Greek Orthodox cathedral.

Dombalis, who is white, is one of two men who came up with the idea for the attack on crime. The other is the Rev. Robert Taylor, pastor emeritus of Fourth Baptist Church, who is black.

They have formed an ad hoc group that includes church leaders from the area's largest denominations - Baptist, United Methodist and Catholic.

The group will send letters next week through the Richmond Area Clergy Association urging the leaders of more than 600 area churches, synagogues and mosques to address crime during services May 20-22.

``We want to call upon them to include a moment in the service where something is said or sung about the escalation of violence,'' Taylor said Thursday after the association approved a resolution supporting the letter.

Suggested scriptural references and sermon ideas will be included for clerics of all faiths. Christians, in particular, are steered toward St. Paul's letter to the Romans, in which the apostle speaks about the project's theme, ``Hope for Hurting Humanity.''

The Rev. Lee B. Sheaffer, director of the United Methodist Virginia Conference Council on Ministries, said Bishop Thomas B. Stockton and the three area district superintendents have endorsed the proposal.

The Rev. James McDonald, general minister of the Virginia Council of Churches, said leaders who were not at Wednesday's session have voiced approval.

by CNB