Metropolitan Kirill meets with European Union ambassadors

Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, met with ambassadors of the European Union countries on January 29, 2008, at Hotel National in Moscow. The working lunch was initiated by the Slovenian Embassy, the EU chair for the first half of 2008. Welcoming the church delegation, the Slovenian Ambassador A. Benedejcic noted that Slovenia set the promotion of inter-cultural dialogue in Europe as one of her priority during her chairmanship.

Metropolitan Kirill congratulated Slovenia on her first chairmanship at the European Union and wished her leaders success in this mission. He said the Russian Church was ready to cooperate with the European Union institutions on issues involved in inter-cultural dialogue, since he sees in this dialogue as an important component of today’s communication among nations.

The DECR chairman enumerated the international initiatives in which the Russian Orthodox Church participated in recent years, saying ‘Church representatives took part in the High-Level Meeting for inter-cultural and interreligious understanding, dialogue and peace, which took place in the framework of the 62^nd UN General Assembly and in the first forum of Alliance of Civilizations in Spain. The Russian Church has made a contribution to the development of the Council of Europe’s White Book on inter-cultural dialogue’. He also mentioned the Summit of Religious Leaders, which took place in summer 2006 in Moscow on the initiative of the Interreligious Council in Russia. According to Metropolitan Kirill, ‘the principal result of that Summit was an expression of solidarity of the world religious community concerning the need to preserve human dignity’. The DECR chairman reminded that ‘religious leaders named moral relativism as one of the serious threats to human dignity, and the Summit came to a conclusion that the time came for a more intensive dialogue between world religions and authoritative international organizations’. He also noted that to develop this dialogue in the European Union it was important to include in the Lisbon Treaty, which replaced the draft European Constitution, an Article 16c sealing the commitment of the Union to maintain an open, transparent and regular dialogue with religious communities.

During the talk over the lunch they also discussed relationships between human rights and morality, the role of religion in forming national identity and participation of religious communities in public life.

The church side included Bishop Mark of Yegoryevsk and Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, DECR vice-chairmen; Archpriest Nikolay Balashov, DECR secretary for inter-Orthodox relations; Rev. Igor Vyzhanov, DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations, and Rev. George Ryabykh, acting DECR secretary for church-society relations. The European Union countries were represented by ambassadors and high-ranking diplomats of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia Spain, Sweden, as well as Mr. Paul Vandoren, deputy head of the European Commission’s delegation to Russia.

DECR Communication Service