Posted on 11/12/2012 9:44:55 AM PST by marshmallow
JERUSALEM — Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill called on Sunday for closer cooperation between religions at meetings with Israel’s chief rabbis in Jerusalem, on the third day of a historic Holy Land visit.
“In our times, when people are giving up faith and tradition, there is special significance to good ties between representatives of different faiths,” he told Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar.
“Today, when so many people think that the main thing in life is to be free and give up belief, it is all the more important to retain moral values,” he said in simultaneously translated remarks.
The head of a community of some 150 million Orthodox believers arrived in Jerusalem on Friday for his first visit since becoming head of the powerful church in 2009.
He visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre the same day and was at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem on Saturday, when he also met Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.
In talks with the Ashkenazis’ Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, Kirill said that “the situation in Africa and the Middle East necessitates religious dialogue.”
Metzger also presented Kirill with the draft of a document containing the fundamentals of religious dialogue.
Following the meetings at the chief rabbinate, Kirill met Israeli President Shimon Peres.
A statement from the president’s office said Peres expressed his respect to members of Kirill’s religion living in Israel.
“They are good citizens,” he told the patriarch. “Whatever we can do to ease their lives and religious faith, we will.”
(Excerpt) Read more at pravmir.com ...
?? Aren’t the Orthodox burning down Baptist churches in Russia?
He should go to Cairo and meet with the Coptic Pope.
Are you talking about that electrical fire in the Ukraine?
I’ll never understand the mania for “religious dialogue,” which always seems to mean “let’s all change enough so we can merge.”
Are ‘Baptist’ and ‘Pentecostal’ the same thing?
They are when their churches are razed.
Is that a ‘No’ then?
That's what I'm getting here. I used the term "Baptist" loosely because I really view almost all evangelicals as a kind of Baptist. I realize that kind of humor may not transmit in a post, particularly when you don't seem very interested at what is happening to churches in Russia. I made the mistake of posting in a religion thread, which I thought was a political thread.
No, I didn’t say any such thing.
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