«We should be respectful of how we describe each other! I would like to be called a Muslim who is searching for the fundamentals in my faith. Am I a dangerous fundamentalist?” asked ECRL member Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra rhetorically the participants of the Kyiv Interfaith Forum, convened 23 – 24 April. He was part of a panel that discussed “Moderating [...]

ECRL General Secretary Stein Villumstad last week joined other regional secretary generals of Religions for Peace in New York for a planning session of the IX World Assembly of Religions for Peace. The Assembly will be held in Vienna 19 – 22 November this year under the theme “Welcoming the Other: Action for Human Dignity, Citizenship and Shared Well-being”. Around [...]

Both Ecumenical Patriarch, His Holiness Bartholomew and President of Diyanet emphasised when ECRL Moderator and General Secretary visited Turkey this week. Patriarch Bartholomew also underlined the need for ECRL to call for an end to all religious discrimination in Europe, including against Christians. President Mehmet Görmez of Diyanet (Directorate for Religious Affairs in Turkey) called for a redefinition of inter-religious [...]

The ECRL/Religions for Peace delegations made Monday two statements at the international conference in Oslo on “Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons”. Read one of them in full…

The Interfaith Council in Kyrgyzstan was successfully registered in December 2012, and had its first official meeting in Bishkek 8 January. The Council wants to promote freedom of religion and belief, and support reconciliation and social cohesion initiatives. The Director of State Commission of Religious Affairs welcomed the Interfaith Council as an important partner in promoting understanding and cooperation between [...]

Mr. Waleed El Haddad, External Affairs spokesperson of the Freedom and Justice Party: “On-going demonstrations in the streets of Cairo reflect the Egyptian revolution and its new-won freedom to show dissenting views”. The statement came in the ECRL co-hosted consultation “The Arab Spring & Freedom of Religion or Belief: How should Europe engage and with whom?” in the European Parliament [...]

Religious leaders can do more to promote the right of all religious and belief communities to full, equal and non-discriminatory access to legal personality, said participants of a joint meeting of the ECRL Executive Committee and OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Warsaw on 22 November.

Yolande Iliano, President of Religions for Peace Europe: “The quality of relations between religious actors is a pre-requisite for making impact when jointly addressing concerns in the European public sphere”. She addressed around 20 members of the Governing Board of Religions for Peace Europe who met in Brussels during the weekend 16 – 18 November. The meeting observed that it [...]

ECRL Moderator Thomas Wipf meeting Senior Minister Baroness Warsi: “UK experiences in inter-religious dialogue, co-existence and cooperation important to the rest of Europe!” Due to its history, UK has gained experience over decades in living in societies with multitudes of cultures, ethnicities and religions. Rest of Europe has a lot to learn from the UK experiences. ECRL could be a [...]

“ECRL, as the most representative inter-religious body in Europe, will continue to contribute to important conversation and processes with European institutions in close cooperation with religious bodies that offer crucial expertise on current European agendas” Thomas Wipf, Moderator of ECRL, expressed after his visit to Brussels 9 – 10 October.