Speech of Bartholomew I, Patriarch of constantinople orthodox church

Your Excellencies,
Distinguished Participants,
Honored Guests,
It is with great joy that we participate in this II Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in the city of Astana, in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan, being the largest country in Central Asia, with admirable stability is an example to many countries around the world, for the people of Kazakhstan embrace diversity and do not allow conflicts to divide them.

We would like to extend our warmest congratulations to His Excellency Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, and to thank him for inviting us to participate in this important event, giving us the opportunity to share our views on such pertinent issues as the impact and the relationship of religion to society, and to matters of international security.

We also would like to thank Mr. Nurtai Abykayev, the Chief of the Secretariat of the Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, and congratulate him for the excellent organization of this Congress.

His dedication to the Inter-faith Dialogue deserves much praise and his sincere interest in building bridges among cultures, religions and civilizations is remarkable. We are certain that this 2^nd Congress will bear fruitful results and it will become yet another step in reaching our goal of peaceful co-existence in our world.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate is an eager participant in the inter-faith dialogue and consultations which strive to foster harmony, solidarity and understanding between Our Lord's warring children. We have organized, as well as participated in many seminars and conferences with our Jewish and Muslim brethren, and we are advocates for the dialogue and the possibility of the coexistence of peoples who come from different cultural traditions. The Orthodox Church, and especially the Ecumenical Patriarchate, has always been in favour of peaceful and harmonious coexistence of all people and all nations, irrespective of their language and culture, and irrespective of their religious and political convictions, because all people bear within them the image of God, and we are consubstantial and equal between ourselves. This is especially important if we take into consideration the claims that religion has become a factor in the imbalance of international security, since we all witness how religion has been abused and used as pretence to justify acts of utter cruelty.

We are grateful that an opportunity is given to us once again to repeat in the presence of so many select personalities our unswerving conviction that if we so desire, and if our hearts accept it, we can coexist in peace and profitable cooperation, despite the differences in religion among us. We all try to infuse the world with the spirit of reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. We are all in dispute with the spirit of enmity and conflict between people and cultures, a dispute that we approach in a peaceful manner.

We are indeed living through turbulent times, in which the indomitable human spirit appears irreparably fractured. A multitude of horrors are plaguing the international climate with fear and sorrow. This seems to be sustained by a bottomless repository of mutual suspicion and cultural disconnect, that can easily bring back memories of the times of the Cold War.

The subject of this conference is addressing burning issues that tantalize our peaceful living and coexistence on an international scale and we, as representatives of Religion, through a constructive cooperation, will be able to achieve the appropriate framework to keep the international order of peace in our post-modern times, despite the difficulties that seem to tower themselves in front of us.

Tendencies to outcast religion and religious teachings from everyday life have been attempted over and over, and the results have been dreadful. We have witnessed how attempting to keep religion out of the social reality has led only to worse situations; subsequently, we have seen with our own eyes how religion has been used and abused in order to serve as pretence for violence and enmity. However, we have also witnessed how politicians have come to realize what an important impact religion has in bridging peoples and society, fulfilling thus its purpose of reconciliation, rather than becoming the reason for a conflict. Recognizing this fact has helped to bring religion once again back into the reality of our life, utilizing its influence to strengthen the ties among individuals and peoples of our multicultural world. It is in this spirit that religion can actually become an aid and a stabilizing factor in matters of international security.

Many times throughout history humanity has been engaged in what has become known as religious warfare. It is a term that has become a synonym of violence and utter cruelty, and it seemed that it had become an issue of the past that one would only come across in history books. Unfortunately, this term seems to have found its way back into our everyday vocabulary, since we find it more and more in tabloids and forums of international discussions. It seems as if there is not a single place in the world that has remained untouched by it, since tragic situations that show religious violence or conflict associated with religion seem to be omnipresent.

However, what makes the situation even more problematic is that religious conflicts are harder to solve and demand much more honest work and cooperation from the religious authorities involved in them. The reason for this is the fact that religious values are values that are non-negotiable; therefore the situations are more complex. Studies show that whenever religion is associated with conflict, the level of lethality is much higher than in non-religious conflicts; any conflict that has a religious component, the higher this component goes, the more likely it is to be of longer duration, larger scope, higher intensity and higher severity. As a result, peace communities and conflict communities have a much harder time trying to find solutions for such matters.

It is a known fact that religious warfare brings out the worst in people. There are people who are ready to die for their faith and there are people ready to kill for their faith: the people in the first category are considered martyrs, whereas the people in the second category are considered fanatics. One can say that this is like a coin with its two sides. Nevertheless, we all believe in God of love, the Creator who fashioned humanity out of love, and Whose compassion is eternal. So there should not be any space for those who are using religion as their excuse to commit horrible crimes. Religious fanaticism is one of the thorniest aspects of the problem and this is, where our efforts should focus, if we want to see the world change, if we desire to see a world, where religious warfare will have no place in it whatsoever. Respect and reconciliation of our differences is what has to be promoted, what has to be taught in every synagogue, in every mosque, in every church. God is God of peace in all three Abrahamic religions. He is the Prince of Peace who brings His love and forgiveness and soothes the shattered hearts and minds of all.

Unfortunately, politicians do not have time to look at such a solution. They try to fight fire with fire, and the results, as we see worldwide, are not bearing any fruit, but accentuate the death tolls and spill even more blood. Economic interests, power and control add nothing but more fuel to the raging conflicts. Reconciliation is religion practiced at its best, and reconciliation is a core value. We have witnessed how politicians and society at large over the years have accused religion for all the negative things that have happened in the world, instead of remembering and realizing that religion is an instrument of bringing people together, and not the means of terrorizing one another.

People must realize that religious freedom, security and stability come hand in hand. If religious freedom is breached, then trouble lies not very far off. It is here that we should focus next. As we have mentioned before, religious values are non-negotiable values. Diversity and pluralism are traits of our times that no one can deny. We are called to live with them and learn how to grow in them, without loosing our identity, without compromising ourselves. How can we attain that? Many faithful worry that this will bring an end to their uniqueness, since syncretism is a reality in our times. However, it is our task to educate and inform our faithful, and help them first learn and understand their own faith as deep and as well as possible. Only then will they be able to understand enough about their neighbor's faith in order to respect both the "other faith", and the "other person". We witness how many tend to become theologians and create fanatic tendencies that result in real-time conflict. The lack of education and the need to adhere to a religious representative, may that be a priest, a rabbi or an imam, makes people loose their focus and drives them to incoherent actions.

There are many places in our world where people of extreme diversity, both in culture and religion, have lived peacefully for centuries, but the immature abuse of extreme religious teachings, which by the way occurs only if we present things out of context, has led them to tragic situations. Selfish people abused the content of our Holy Scriptures and brought enmity to our faithful. Selfish people disrespected religious symbols and created conflicts that many times have gotten out of control. We see that lack of respect exists on every level, not only among religious groups, but also among the secular and the religious worlds.

It would be very easy to just point our fingers and accuse our neighbors of everything that is wrong in our world. It would make us feel justified and righteous. We wonder, would that do any of us any good? Would that bring a solution to our problems? We assure you, it would only make things worse. Unless we take upon ourselves our mistakes and our shortcomings, we will never be able to rest.

Having said that, let us look at the term "security" and try to define it from a Christian perspective in an effort to help us look at the matter from a theological perspective as well. For a Christian, security is not one dimensional, but is multi-dimensional since it is all-embracing, encompassing physical, economic, and societal security. However, the most vital form of security for a Christian is the security of the soul, which is nourished by love, compassion and altruism. It is this spirit that we try to promote and in this spirit that we work with our brothers of different religions, for only the spirit of peace and reconciliation will allow us to coexist. We all feel wronged, we all feel that injustices are enclosing us from everywhere, but let us not forget the words Jesus said on his cross that encompass all this love, compassion and altruism. He said, "Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do". This is the epitome of reconciliation for us all.

The new millennium has given us a taste of how a few can tarnish the honorable beliefs of millions. Does this mean that we can generalize, create stereotypes, and thus demonize millions of faithful just because only a handful is to be blamed? How can this establish, or even ensure security? Some people have the tendency to do so right away, making things even worse, and opening a greater gap between their already different cultures and identities. It is our sacred duty to avoid such incidents.

Dear Participants,

Since the tragic events of 11 September, our efforts at the Ecumenical Patriarchate to promote inter-faith dialogue between Judaism, Christianity and Islam have taken on an added urgency. In an effort to help the healing process of those wounds and fissures that followed, we organized a high profile Conference of Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious leaders in Brussels in December 2001. In the Declaration adopted by this Conference the religious leaders confirmed among other things the following:

"The will of God is for the peace of heavens to reign on earth. The peace of God is not the mere absence of war, it is the gift of abundant life. There is indeed an immediate and inseparable connection between peace and justice. Thus, we pray constantly for peace to prevail in the world and for peaceful living together among the faithful of all religions in our modern, multicultural, and multi-ethnic global society".

This Declaration, which came to be known as the Brussels Declaration, was one step forward in the process of understanding and building confident and trusting relationships among the faithful of the three monotheistic religions, based on mutual respect and willingness for reconciliation. Since then, the inter-faith dialogue has grown and we are still working together with our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters to achieve a peaceful coexistence which will ensure the security of our world.

The last decade of the past century has been marked by rampant hatred, destruction, unbridled nationalism and religious intolerance, especially in the area of the Balkans. All that led to inexcusable suffering of thousands of people, especially of innocent civilians who were uninvolved in the blood-thirsty vengeance that swept through our world. We also witnessed that out of the phoenix of this terror, peace and tranquility started slowly to appear, as the people involved have been trying to face themselves and their differences in a spirit of reconciliation, for they realized that they were the only ones that could return their lost sense of security and the religious leaders helped them slowly re­establish their lost relationships of co-existing in a peaceful manner.

Representatives of Orthodoxy, Roman-Catholicism, Muslim and Jewish communities of the Balkans came together in May 2000 with representatives of the European Union, NATO, OSCE and regional governments in the Vlatadon Monastery in Thessaloniki, Greece to establish a common program to strengthen the pulse of peace, reconciliation and compromise. All together we declared that "religious communities must play a key role in rebuilding a multi-faith, multi­cultural and multi-ethnic society in South-East Europe", and emphasized that the conflict in the former Yugoslavia was not about religion, although that was how it was presented. The Vlatadon Initiative gave the opportunity to the people who suffered so much to come together again, and rebuild what had been destroyed.

Nobody is saying that this process does not take time, neither that it is without any difficulty, especially in our world today that tries on many levels to disassociate humanity from religion. It would be immature to entertain such an idea. Religion however, offers a solution to the spiritual alienation, which has become very dangerous for the individual of our times, since it isolates the person from the salvific communion with God, his fellow human beings and the world at large. Religion helps the individual who tends to feel more and more alone in a universal multicultural society, unable to overcome the suffocative bounds of spiritual confusion and ideological disabilities, overwhelmed by all the mass media and the institutional functions of a faceless society, to find a way out of the spiritual dead-end that the world represents, learning once again to trust and desire reconciliation.

The redemptive experience that is offered by religion accentuates the relativity of human existence to God and to the world, and connects indissolubly the Natural Justice with the Divine Law. That is applicable not only to the Christian world, but to a universal perspective, as it is also certified by the International Declarations on the protection of Human Rights. The sanctity of Ufe is a common factor in all three monotheistic religions and we have to keep that as part of our focus and we have to remind the world that we have more to offer than what many try to imply.

Please, allow us to state once again that the religious beliefs of the Abrahamic religions have love and respect for creation as their common denominator. Love and respect for all living things that God has created; love and respect for one another; love and respect for the entire world. It is our common Abrahamic heritage that leads us on our way towards peaceful living.

This past November the Ecumenical Patriarchate had organized yet another Inter-religious Conference "Peace and Tolerance Ï" focusing on these topics. That conference declared among other things the respect for life by the proverbial expression "Live and let others to live", the respect for human rights, especially the rights of minorities, and for religious tolerance, a key factor for safeguarding security, and it also condemned terrorism and violence. Furthermore, it also pointed out the Christian saying "blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Children of God\ as well as the Muslim saying "Allah summoneth to the abode of Peace". We expressed our gratitude to God, for He gave us the opportunity to verify our decision to cooperate for the increase of peace, justice and human dignity.

It is therefore necessary, that we move towards that direction beyond the disabilities of the past. The impartial and incorruptible history has, of course, registered behaviors of faithful of all three monotheistic religions that are incompatible to our Holy Scriptures, nobody can claim the opposite. But let us now show that these times have gone by. Let us show the world that we have learned from our mistakes and that the time has come to act for God. We shall all converge to what the will of God commands for all. Those, who have opened their hearts to God, feel that the merciful and loving God is not pleased by bloodshed, but by peace, which is the ultimate good and give me a present. In Judaism, Christianity and Islam alike, we greet one another using the word "peace".

We have to keep in mind that there are more things that unite us than divide us, and we have to strive to ensure that religion will cease to be considered as a factor, that brings imbalance in international security. The basis of our cooperation and our dialogues and our efforts is to improve life for the world should be our common values. We all confess that God does not want anybody's destruction, this should then be the basis of our conversations. It is only by searching for our common grounds, not, of course, for the sake of achieving the impossible unification of our faiths, but for the accommodation of our peaceful coexistence, that we will be helping our fellow believers and non-believers to discover God's goodness and thus become conscious believers. The Inter-religious Dialogue made it possible to witness that out of despair has arisen the reservoir of peace and tolerance.

However, it would be unwise to think that we have found a permanent and secure solution to the problems that we are faced with on an everyday basis. Religion has always respected and honored the importance and the value of Human Rights. Nevertheless, it seems as though society forgets about the sensitivity of religious people. The neutralizing and numbing of peoples' feelings of religious symbols has been attempted over and over. It is true that this happens on a constant basis in the Christian world, and the usual target is the person of Jesus Christ. If, however, we dare to express any discomfort about it, we are being accused of disrespect to the right of expression.

The misuse of freedom of expression in order to blaspheme that, which is holy for believers, is an act that we all condemn. As we have already stated, Christianity has also been the receiver of many such acts of blasphemes under the covers of what has come to be considered freedom of expression, and we therefore understand and suffer with you in this time of distress. All religions, whether Islam, Christianity, or Judaism, hold certain symbols and realities of faith as holy and the believers feel extremely strongly about them. What we want to safeguard is the respect of these feelings and of the symbols and realities of faith.

We are not against freedom of expression, but when that particular freedom goes against the freedom of religion and religious expression and offends people world-wide, then the people responsible for that offense, should think twice before they commit such abhorrent acts of violation and insult. We only want to receive the same respect we show to others.

Therefore, let us all join our voices in prayer so that these acts of violence will not be repeated. Let us all pray that we will not mourn more people as a result of the disrespect of some. Let us all pray that with our faith and hope in God we will be able to transform our world and create the necessary environment that will foster diversity, respect and peaceful coexistence among all. Let us all pray that God will restore the security in our souls so that we may be able to work closer together in an effort to ensure security for all.

Finally, let us all pray that the warfare in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon and Israel, which has broken out and uncontrollable and indiscriminating violence has taken an immense toll in lives of hundreds of innocent victims, mostly civilians of both sides, will cease and come to a final halt. Let us ask for God's infinite mercy and hope that He will show those who are involved in this abhorrent bloodshed the way to peace and tolerance, the way to allow the future generations to grow up in an environment of acceptance and forgiveness, and not in an environment where enmity and hatred reign freely over the hearts and minds of the people.

Thank you.