Brussels – Mgr Athenagoras Peckstadt, Bishop of Sinope and assistant of the Metropolitan of Belgium, and Rev. Ciprian Zeno Popescu, deacon of the Orthdodox Archdiocese of Belgium (Ecumenical Patriarchate), represented the Orthodox Church at the Inaugural Dinner of the International Council for Inter-Religious Cooperation, with the participation of other Belgian senior religious leaders from Christian, Muslim and Jews Communities, politicians, diplomats and other high ranked persons, on Tuesday 29th September 2009 at the European Parliament.
Among others Bishop Athenagoras Peckstadt was invited to be one of the main speakers of the evening. At the end of his speech he briefly summed up what he had been trying to say: “Freedom, respect for the dignity and integrity of each human person, is fundamental to our vision of a new world. But freedom is not only personal; it is also interpersonal. The Self has its being and its fulfillment in the Other. Communion and the others. We cannot be truly free, truly personal, unless we are in communion with other persons. We need you, in order to be our self. If we make that the guideline in our personal life – and if we make that our guideline as citizens of our own nation and of the whole world – then without doubt religion will have a vital role to play in a changing world.” He also underlined the will of the Orthodox Church to be a partner in the cooperation between religions, working together for a better world. This means “entering into the suffering of the other, for I am responsible. We all must take this responsibility seriously. It is unacceptable that only 20% of the world population should consume 80% of its products, while 80% live in dreadful situations. We must share with our brothers and sisters throughout the world! The same is to be said about the environmental crisis of our day. Our Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew - known as the “Green Patriarch” – has organized many seminars and symposia on the seas[1], studying the degradation of the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, the Danube River, the Adriatic and Baltic Seas, the Amazon and next week he’ll be on the Mississippi. Thus we understand the most important responsibility of man: to transfigure and renew the world, in other words to create a new world.”
The International Council for Inter-Religious Cooperation (ICIRC) is an International multi-faith Think Tank formed in 2009 with the purpose of engaging religious leaders on the ground to cooperate and ICIRC to assist them in deleting the vacuum created between the religions.
The name ICIRC has been chosen with great care in order to solve the emerging issues. That era has now passed, it is the vacuum between convictions that commands more and more of our attention. Even in a world where religions often clash and sometimes cooperate, we are learning that the vacuum between convictions is also a vacuum with its own challenges.
Today ICIRC has a network on informed and connected ground religious leaders working for bringing peace and religious tolerance. ICIRC helps these leaders by providing training for assisting them in preaching information through their schools, madrassas and open learning about peace and cooperating with other religions.
