Meeting of the Christian Interconfessional Advisory Committee (CIAC)

MEETING OF THE CHRISTIAN INTERCONFESSIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE (CIAC)

The Board of the Christian Interconfessional Advisory Committee (CIAC) held its third enlarged meeting on September 13, 1999, at the grand assembly-hall of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Department for External Church Relations. It was devoted to preparations for the Jubilee International Interconfessional Conference.

The theme of the Conference will be “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever (Heb. 13:8). Christianity on the threshold of a third millennium”. The Conference will take place on November 23-25, 1999, in Moscow. It is expected to be attended by high-ranking participants and guests including His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia, heads and representatives of the Christian confessions in the CIS, the Baltics, Europe and America, as well as representatives of the Presidential Administration, the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the Moscow Government.

The Jubilee Conference will be significant in that it will represent a joint effort to reflect on the role and significance of Christianity in the history of the civilization and to overcome Christian divisions.

The meeting of the CIAC Board was co-chaired by Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, DECR chairman, Archbishop Taddeusz Kondruciewicz of Hippon-Zarita, apostolic administrator for the Latin-rite Catholics in European Russia, and Rev. Peter B. Konovalchik, chairman of the Union of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Russian Federation.

The meeting considered the organization and financing the Jubilee Conference.

The meeting was held in the spirit of a friendly and constructive dialogue.