Within the initiatives promoted by the European Parliament for the Year of Intercultural Dialogue, the ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I is speaking at the Brussels Hemicycle on September 24th, during the plenary session. The objective of the European Year, it is made known by a note of the EU Assembly, "is to foster mutual understanding and living together". In such context, "MEPs have already had the opportunity to listen to the Grand Mufti of Syria and the UNO speaker on religious freedom". President Hans-Gert Poettering has already sent the same invitation to Pope Benedict XVI, the Dalai Lama, the Grand Rabbi of the United Kingdom Jonathan Sachs, Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki Moon, and other political personalities, including the Palestinian and Israeli presidents, and the president of the African Union. The Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople will meet Poettering himself, at first, and then will officially speak in the auditorium. To foster comparison between cultures, the Parliament hosts, at its quarters, events, exhibitions, debates and "the participation of important personalities from the art and cultural world". "The parliamentary commissions were then invited to make a special effort to integrate intercultural dialogue into their activities".
News by SIR