Metropolitan Kirill Meets Ayatollah Mahmud Mohammadi Araki

METROPOLITAN KIRILL MEETS AYATOLLAH MAHMUD MOHAMMADI ARAKI

On 17 December 2002 at the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, there took place a meeting between Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, the DECR MP Chairman and Ayatollah Mahmud Mohammadi Araki, Chairman of the Organization for Islamic Cultural Relations (OICR) of the Islamic Republic of Iran and H.E.Golaremza Shafii, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Russian Federation.

Taking part in the meeting were also Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, the DECR Deputy Chairman, Roman A.Silantyev, a DECR staff member, and Iranian diplomats.

Metropolitan Kirill highly appreciated the long-standing cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Islamic community of the Islamic Republic of Iran and noted a particular importance of this cooperation at present with its challenges of globalization and the attempts to incite the Muslim and Christian civilizations against each other.

Ayatollah Araki noted the necessity to develop the dialogue, which will help to shape the understanding in the Christian world about the true Islam as a religion that condemns any manifestations of extremism and terrorism. The OICR Chairman said that he completely shared the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on the spiritual and moral education in general and of that in the secondary school in particular.

See also:

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate