Promoting Peaceful Coexistence and Common Citizenship

[ 14 ] We also extend a sincere thanks to His Excellency, Faisal Bin Muaammar, Secretary General of the KAICIID, and the planning committee for their fine work, as well as for inviting us to share our Orthodox approach to promoting peaceful coexistence and common citizenship. It is indeed an extraordinary joy for us to be in the presence of so many tireless workers for peace, who have travelled to be in Vienna this week in order to participate in this conference and address the increasing threats that affect human dignity, understanding, openness and peace in today’s world. May our work here bear fruit during a con- fusing and challenging time in our history. Dear participants, on December 10, 1948, in Paris, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed and trans- latedThe Universal Declaration of Human Rights into over five hundred languages. Article 18 of the Declaration spe- cifically states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes free- dom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, wor- ship and observance.” In March of 2011, UN Resolution 16/18 was enthusi- astically adopted giving us a global policy framework for combating intolerance, stigmatization, discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against persons based on religion or belief. In spite of the aforementioned documents and the broad mobilization and struggle for human rights following the conclusion of the SecondWorldWar, and lasting until today, it is an unfortunate fact that many governments around the world continue to create discriminatory legislation, and use force in order to suppress and deny their citizens’ freedom of religion or belief. Over the last few years, the percentage of countries with high or very high levels of social hostil- ity against religious minority groups has steadily increased around the globe. Conditions in many parts of the world are far from ideal. Religious intolerance and persecution regret- tably remain far too prevalent. A great part of the global population lives under conditions of great restriction, or suffers acts of violence in an attempt to limit their religious persuasion and expression. In recent years, religious persecution has continually risen in over thirty countries. Anti-Semitic attitudes are persistent and pervasive around the world. One-in-twelve Christians experience high to extreme persecution for their faith. Violence against the Rohingyas and Uyghurs, both Muslim minorities living in Myanmar and China respec- tively, has reached a new high. An answer to this unfortunate reality can be found in the wisdom of the Jewish spiritual leader Rabbi Hillel, who flourished in the first century before Christ, and said: “Do not do unto others what you would not want to be done unto you — that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary”. An answer is given by Jesus Christ: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Answers exist in the basic texts of world religions where compassion, solidarity, respect, peace, mutual acceptance, and protection of the vulnerable, are central values. One answer can be found in the unified voice of the Holy and Great Council of the Orthodox Church, declaring in 2016 that: “Honest interfaith dialogue contributes to the development of mutual trust and to the promotion of peace and reconciliation.” Another answer can be found in King Salman bin Abdu- laziz Al Saud’s statement during the last Janadriya festival: “This event captures Saudi Arabia’s heritage and culture and reflects our shared desire to promote cross-cultural commu- nication and achieve coexistence and tolerance between the peoples of the world based on shared human values”. Yet another answer can be found in the Athens Declara- tion calling upon people of goodwill to continue building bridges between communities to overcome distrust and alienation and to uphold the principle of common citizen- ship for all peoples and to support pluralism in our societies. Love surpasses human capacity. It is a divine gift. Therefore, we strongly believe that to achieve it demands much more than our human, spontaneous response. It requires something much more than our simple will to follow God’s invitation — INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE FOR PEACE —