The Rev John Thomas, president of the US United Church of Christ, has been arrested in a protest about the Iraq war outside the White House in Washington DC - writes Chris Herlinger.

On 10 October 2007 Mr Thomas and another denominational official, the Rev Linda Jaramillo, had been trying to deliver to the White House a pastoral letter that contained 60,000 signatures calling for an end to the military action in Iraq.

The two officials were arrested after they refused to leave a no-protest zone near the gates of the US presidential residence, the UCC news service reported.

Thomas and Jaramillo had earlier sought a meeting with the White House's public liaison office, in order to hand-deliver the petitions, but their requests were refused.

Instead, the two officials held up thick stacks of the petitions in the no-protest zone, and failed to comply with a police request to step back from the White House fence.

Thomas and Jaramillo were handcuffed and led to a police van. They were released after being held briefly at a police station and paying a US$100 fine.

The letter the two officials were attempting to deliver urged, "an end to our reliance on violence as the first, rather than the last resort, [and] an end to the arrogant unilateralism of pre-emptive war."

Thomas told a small group of protesters before the arrests that the symbolic act was a "very meaningful witness of the whole church".

The 1.2-million-member UCC is known for its opposition to the Iraq war.

[With acknowledgements to ENI. Ecumenical News International [1] is jointly sponsored by the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and the Conference of European Churches.]