Meeting of the Interreligious Council in Russia

MEETING OF THE INTERRELIGIOUS COUNCIL IN RUSSIA

The Interreligious Council in Russia met on September 10 at the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. Among those who attended were Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, DECR chairman, Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, chairman of the presidium of the Muslim Board for European Russia and chairman of the Council of Muftis in Russia, Mufti Albir Krganov, director of the department for internal and external affairs of the Central Muslim Board in Russia and the European CIS, the Hon. Avrom Shayevich, Chief Rabbi in Russia and the CIS, and the Ven. Sanjey-Lama, representative of the Pandido Khambo-Lama in Moscow.

The meeting adopted a Declaration of the Interreligious Council in Russia, the full text of which is given below. The Council approved the initiative to convene an interreligious peace forum in November 2000. Participating in it will be religious communities involved in the work of the Council in Russia and other CIS countries. It was agreed to send a delegation of the Council to the next General Assembly of the World Conference on Religion and Peace to take place from November 25 to 29, 1999, in Amman, Jordan. The Council also considered the organizational and structural aspects of its work.

After a discussion on the situation in the North Caucasus and the general situation in Russia, the participants expressed the conviction that interreligious dialogue and cooperation should be strengthened in face of new challenges to civil peace. The attempts to bring hostility in relations among followers of various religions and to link terrorism with the religious affiliation of criminals were resolutely rejected. The Council underlined its commitment to the time-honored principles of respectful coexistence and benevolent mutual aid on which interreligious relations have been built in Russia. The participants expressed gratitude to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and All Russia for his statement on the situation in Dagestan made on September 6, 1999.

Grieved by the tragic event which happened on the night from September 8 to 9 in Moscow, the Council expressed profound condolences to the victims and their relatives and friends.

Declaration
of the Interreligious Council in Russia

The Interreligious Council in Russia has been formed by the associations uniting followers of the leading traditional religions in the country who have been historically in dialogue with one another. By its foundation the Council has sealed the established practice whereby representatives of various religions have discussed problems of concern for the faithful and the contemporary society as a whole and united efforts in the service of reconciliation and spiritual and moral revival.

The Council has set as its main task to coordinate efforts by religious associations in internal and external peacemaking, to develop relations between religion, society and state, to strengthen public morality, to restore and preserve the spiritual and cultural heritage of the peoples in Russia, to organize and support interreligious dialogue on socially significant and other related problems, to maintain cooperation with international interreligious organizations and to respond to events in public life inside and outside Russia.

The Council has not set as its task to promote rapprochement among religious teachings and doctrines, nor does it have any liturgical forms of work or theological positions of its own. At the same time, one of its aims is to promote mutual learning on doctrinal, philosophical and cultural traditions.

The Council is open for cooperation with the governmental authorities in the Russian Federation and other countries, as well as public and political structures, the academic and cultural communities and intergovernmental organizations. At the same time, it does not associate itself with the state or any political force, but determines its position and builds its work independently, proceeding from the principle of general agreement. Decisions on enlargement of the Council membership and the establishment of systematic cooperation with other religions and confessions shall be taken by the Council on the basis of consensus.

The members of the Council are convinced that their efforts to make permanent the dialogue between followers of the traditional religious associations in Russia will help our Fatherland and its people to establish lasting peace, to achieve harmony and well-being and to revive spiritually.