Russia Profile, Russia
July 7 2006

Dialogue and Debate at World Religious Summit
By Andrei Zolotov, Jr.
Russia Profile

For Metropolitan Kirill (Gundyaev) of Smolensk and Kaliningrad,
who has run the Russian Orthodox Church’s Department of External
Church Relations for the past 17 years, it was one of the highlights
of his career. More than 200 religious figures from 49 countries
convened in Moscow this week for what was called the World Summit
of Religious Leaders. For almost three days, patriarchs, cardinals,
muftis, rabbis, ayatollahs, bishops and Buddhist monks took turns
making their presentations on the approach their communities take to
global challenges.

This summit, one of the highest-level religious conferences of the past
decade, was not the only non-governmental meeting in Russia ahead of
the G8 summit in St. Petersburg next week. President Vladimir Putin
had to divide his time between the religious summit, a gathering of
international NGO representatives called Civil G8 and a meeting of
trade union leaders, all trying to send their particular message to
the club of the world’s mightiest political leaders.

Putin put forward the main idea of the religious summit in the most
concise form: to attempt to develop an alternative to the clash of
civilizations, mainly in the field of Christian-Muslim relations,
and to present Russia as a possible arena for such discussion.

"Attempts are being made to split the world along religious or ethnic
lines, driving the wedge first and foremost between the Christian and
Muslim communities," Putin said in his address to the meeting. "A
clash of civilizations is being de facto imposed on the world, and
we have to realize fully what kind of catastrophic consequences such
a confrontation may lead to."

The summit also marks a change in the general feelings about interfaith
relations among the Russian Orthodox hierarchy. The "ecumenical
winter" of the 1990s is largely over, and the leadership of the Moscow
Patriarchate has found it possible to ignore anti-ecumenical protests
among its flock while formulating a decidedly non-theological, moral
values-based agenda for inter-Christian and interfaith relations,
aimed at consolidating traditionalist forces around the world in
opposition to secular liberal globalization.

On the last day of the summit, the religious leaders issued a
pre-drafted statement that was visibly different from predominant
Western discourse and echoed some ideas promoted recently by
Metropolitan Kirill.

"We need to build a world order which combines democracy – as the
way of harmonizing different interests and allowing for people’s
participation in national and global decision-making – with respect to
the moral feeling, way of life, various legal and political systems,
and national and religious traditions of the people," the summit’s
message said. "The world should have many poles and many systems,
meeting the requirements of all individuals and nations rather than
matching lifeless and oversimplified ideological patterns."

In response to a number of recent conflicts between religious and
secular forces, the message called for an "end to any insult to
religious feelings and defilement of texts, symbols, names or places
held sacred by believers."

The declaration also emphasized the importance of human rights
as a concern for religious leaders, but within the confines of a
religious re-interpretation of human rights, similar to the one
announced at a national forum organized by the Russian Orthodox
Church in April. "Our experience shows that without an ethical core,
without understanding our duties, no society or country is exempt
from conflict and collapse," the message said.

While most of the declaration is dedicated to moral principles, such
as the absolute value of human life from conception to natural death,
it also deals with issues of ecology, responsible use of natural
resources and fair distribution of wealth. The document also called
for a dialogue with the adherents of non-religious views.

In the run-up to the summit, much of the media discussion in the
Russian press focused on the absence of Pope Benedict XVI, the Dalai
Lama and Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople. Apart from the
fact that the pope and the Dalai Lama do not attend conferences over
which they don’t preside, Metropolitan Kirill told reporters ahead
of the meeting that it would be wrong to combine two significant
"historical" events – the interfaith summit and the pope’s first visit
to Russia. In a sign of the highly political nature of the meeting,
he also said that the Dalai Lama was not invited because the Russian
Foreign Ministry would likely deny him a visa as a result of Russia’s
increasingly friendly relationship with China. Orthodox patriarchs
more senior than the Patriarch of Moscow were not invited because of
the need for Patriarch Alexy II to preside the meeting, he said.

Yet in a sign of marked improvement in relations between the Russian
Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, Pope Benedict sent a message
and a delegation to Moscow, including five important cardinals.
During the summit, Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Kirill held
bilateral meetings with the Vatican delegation as well as with a number
of other prominent summit participants, such as the Orthodox leaders of
Georgia and Romania, the heads of the Armenian and Ethiopian churches,
the chief mufti of Syria and Rabbi Arthur Schneier from New York.

Also conspicuously absent were any representatives from the major
American and Korean Protestant groups. The Protestant community was
represented largely by established Russian and European Protestant
leaders.

One of the obvious tensions at the conference was between Jewish
leaders and Iran’s leading ayatollah for interfaith relations,
Muhammad Ali Muhammad Taskhiri. At the opening ceremony, Israel’s
Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger was looking at Taskhiri as he said
– with an obvious reference to Iran’s president Mahmud Ahmadinezhad:
"There are leaders in the world who deny the Holocaust and speak of
genocide against themselves only, and it is our duty to tell these
people that not a single person in the world has the right to say
that another country should disappear."

At the final press conference, Taskhiri said that he can have dialogue
with Judaism, but not with Zionism. "If you mean dialogue between Iran
and Israel, I see nothing in common here on which to base a dialogue,"
he said.

Much attention was dedicated to the discussion of religious extremism,
and the consensus – if any – appeared to be that religious education is
the only antidote to fanaticism. "One of the reasons behind extremism
is ignorance of religious tradition," said Metropolitan Kirill. "An
absence of positive knowledge about religion allows dishonest people
to encourage people to embrace extremist views."

Muslim speakers also emphasized the economic and political origins
of extremism.

"It is not religion at all that causes terrorism and extremism," said
Mufti Ravil Gainutdin, chairman of the Council of Muftis of Russia.
"Religious feelings are fueled to boiling point only against the
background of social and economic problems, and it usually happens
in the service of someone’s concrete political interests."

It remained unclear whether, without the pretext of the G8, such a
group would meet again. Some speakers suggested founding a platform
for regular exchange among religious leaders. Opinions differed on
whether it should be fashioned along the lines of the United Nations
or timed with G8 meetings and thus initiated by the churches of the
country that hosts the G8 summit.

Although the sessions represented a series of often pro forma speeches
and some participants were seen drifting off, the forum was also
a sight of lively conversations among colorfully dressed religious
leaders of different confessions.

The Russian daily newspaper Gazeta commented that the summit was a
result of a convergence of the Russian Orthodox Church’s political
interests and the Kremlin’s public relations policy. "The Church
understands that religious leaders have colossal influence in the
world. The Kremlin spin doctors are convinced that a gathering of
different kinds of clergy is a brilliant PR move," the newspaper said.

Maxim Shevchenko, a television anchor and leading expert on politics
and religion, said that the summit was the best manifestation so far of
Metropolitan Kirill’s concept of Russia "as a repository of traditional
values vis-a-vis the secular liberal West," and that it improved the
geopolitical standing of both Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church.

"Metropolitan Kirill doesn’t need PR," Shevchenko said in an
interview. "He is a real politician – one of the few real politicians
in Russia. He has an inner conviction that he is making history."

Staff member Alyona Dushka contributed to this report.