DECR chairman meets with Iranian ambassador in Russia

On July 30, 2010, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations, met with the Iranian Ambassador to the Russian Federation, H. E. Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi.

Participating in the meeting were also Iranian counselors Hashem Chegini and Mojtaba Karami and Mr. I. Shabanov, president of the regional public organization ‘Talysh Diaspora’, from the Iranian side, and M. Palacio and D. Safonov of the secretariat for the far abroad, from the DECR.

Metropolitan Hilarion informed the guest that the Department for External Church Relations maintained close long-standing relations with the Iranian diplomatic mission, especially its Cultural Representation. He also told the Iranian ambassador about the work carried out by the Joint Russian-Iranian Commission for Dialogue ‘Orthodoxy-Islam’ set up in 1997 on the initiative of Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, now His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia.

His Eminence Hilarion drew a special attention of the representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the problem of forced diminishment of the role of religion in society. He said that in the situation of advancing secularism the traditional religions should joint efforts for the sake of preserving ethical values and morals.

In his turn, Mr. Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi thanked Metropolitan Hilarion for the meeting and noted that religion plays a uniting role both in Russia and Iran. He stressed the need for developing dialogue between Orthodoxy and Islam. ‘Contacts between our religions are of fundamental importance since we can use other other’s great experience and oppose secularism together’, he said.

DECR Communication Service