Summit before the summit

The World Summit of Religious Leaders, initiated and organized by the Moscow Patriarchate’s external religious affairs department, ended in the Russian capital on July 5. The Moscow media write that “the idea for the forum was wholeheartedly supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and personally by President Vladimir Putin. Moreover, the Russian leader assured the religious leaders that he would personally inform his colleagues, the leaders of the world’s seven most powerful nations, about the results of the forum.” The summit’s organizers attached special importance to the fact that the event took place prior to the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg. In other words, its resolutions and proposals may be used in high politics.

The summit’s program was extraordinarily broad, including ways to overcome terrorism and extremism; family, life, and sexual equality issues; the need to raise the younger generation aesthetically; ways to overcome poverty; the role of the media; the planet’s resources; ecology; the struggle against contagious diseases; drug addiction; the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction; a dialogue among civilizations; and problems of globalization and the world order. (Only men of the church could discuss all this in three days.) The summit also issued a message to the faithful, governments, and the world community.

A total of 140 delegates arrived in Moscow (over 200 were expected), among them Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Councils for Promoting Christian Unity, and Cardinal Paul Poupard, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, other Roman Catholic cardinals, representatives of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany, the head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, World Council of Churches General Secretary Samuel Kobia, and other Catholic and Protestant clergymen.

Also present at the religious summit were the Supreme Hierarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Garegin II, the patriarchs of pre-Chalcedonian churches, and delegates from Judaic and Buddhist organizations. The Islamic world was extensively represented by ranking clergymen from Syria, Bosnia, Bahrain, Kuwait, the Caucasus, Kazakhstan, Iran, etc. It should be noted that the Council of Muftis of Russia accepted the invitation but made its stand clear: the need to discuss the unhealthy religious situation that has developed in Russia. Israel’s Chief Rabbi Jonah Metzger was also present.

WHO WAS NOT PRESENT

In the first place, it was strange that of the 13 universally recognized Orthodox churches in the world (apart from the Moscow Patriarchate) only the heads of the Georgian and Czech Orthodox churches attended the summit. This oddity has yet to be explained.

A summit usually means a top-level meeting devoted to some international sphere, in this case, the religious one. Much to the surprise of many religious figures, absent from the Moscow summit were distinguished world religious leaders, who either declined the invitation or were not invited, such as Tibetan Buddhist leader Dalai Lama XIV, who is one of the world’s most respected individuals. Metropolitan Kyrill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, as the summit’s chief coordinator, issued a necessary explanation: “The organizers did not forward an invitation to the Dalai Lama so as not to endanger the process of dialogue between him and the Chinese government.”

There is, however, an even more serious reason, a purely political one. The Russian government is doing its best not to irritate Beijing by its contacts with the Dalai Lama, and his presence would be especially inexpedient, since the head of the State Department for Religious Affairs of China was invited to the summit as a consultant.

No explanations were given as to why Pope Benedict XVI was not invited. The reason is that the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate regard the Roman popes as strictly unwelcome guests, so the pope can probably count on an invitation on the eve of Doomsday. Paradoxically, the Moscow religious summit was portrayed as an epochal, global event, despite the fact that the leader of the world’s largest church was not invited. (There are more than one billion Catholics in the world, compared to the most optimistic estimates of 300 million Eastern Orthodox adherents.) The reason for this attitude to the pope is nothing new, to put it mildly; it is rooted in a 1,000- year-old enmity between Western and Eastern Christianity — an enmity some Orthodox believers find very difficult to discard, if at all.

There were hitches on the Orthodox side, as well, primarily the glaring absence of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The “first among equals” was among those who were not invited. It is an open secret that the Moscow and Constantinople patriarchates are battling over the Orthodox eparchy of Surozh in the UK. The Ecumenical Patriarch sent a message urging the participants of the Moscow summit not to yield to attempts to engineer a confrontation between religions and civilizations, but to respond to “fratricidal conflicts with brotherly love...We can overcome everything if we unite in the spirit of the Creator...Economic and political concepts cannot thrive without religion.”

Nor can the absence of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) be overlooked. It has the largest number of parishes (over 10,000) in the Orthodox world. The Moscow Patriarchate is fond of saying that the UOC MP is actually an independent and self-governed church, and that it is an equal member of the ecumenical church commonwealth. In reality, its bishops take part in international religious and secular events only as members of delegations from the Moscow Patriarchate. This, of course, has nothing in common with the prerogatives of a truly self-governed church.

SOME OF THE SPEECHES

In his speech President Putin urged the world religious community to prevent a wedge from being driven between the Christian and Islamic civilizations, and stressed the importance of Christian-Muslim dialogue: “Attempts are being made to split the world on a religious or ethnic basis, above all, to drive a wedge between the Christian and Islamic communities. A conflict of civilizations is being imposed on the world...It is necessary to fully realize the disastrous consequences that this confrontation may bring about.” The Russian president noted that religion “can be a powerful uniting force,” but reminded his listeners of the danger of “self-styled preaching efforts by certain extremist ideological leaders, who cynically take advantage of believers’ sentiments.”

Georgia’s Catholicos Patriarch Ilia II addressed the summit, declaring, “Abkhazia and the Tskhinvali region are open wounds in the flesh of Georgia and the Georgian Church...Much to our regret, conflicts are often settled by violent methods, and this only aggravates the situation. Meanwhile, the church and religious leaders could play a serious role in solving these problems.” Ilia II dwelled on the problem of small countries and described them as “preservers of unique cultural treasures...Georgia is one of these small countries, yet its unique geographical location has resulted in the emergence of frozen conflicts on its territory, producing an explosive situation not only in this region but also on a global scale.”

Rabbi Jonah Metzger said, “If some people think that religious leaders speak only within their communities and have no influence on mankind, they are wrong. We are all in the same boat. If someone says radical things, this will have an effect on all of mankind...History shows that when religions can coexist peacefully, they thrive and help those nations among whom they proselytize to blossom.” Jonah Metzger went on to propose “an international organization, something like the United Nations, for religious communities, where they could profess truths that have the greatest importance for man.”

BACKSTAGE AT THE SUMMIT

The fact remains that not all Russians were thrilled about the world religious summit. The Moscow-based media reported that some Orthodox zealots were outraged by Russian Orthodox bishops and politicians sitting at the same table with “heretics and infidels.” In fact, they were not only outraged, but tried to torpedo the representative forum. Even before the summit was called to order, protesters had collected a number of signatures and sent numerous letters explaining to the true adherents that the actual purpose of that “pseudoworld council” lay in the creation of an “Organization of United Religions,” which they called a glaring act of treason against the true Orthodox faith.

The Moscow Patriarchate regarded this Orthodox citizens’ movement as a provocation. Its spokesman said that no joint divine services, theological declarations, or the creation of an organization of united religions were on the agenda. Instead, the program consisted of issues like terrorism, xenophobia, the demographic crisis, drug addiction, and spiritual decline. None of the religious leaders intended to discuss theological matters. Both before and after the meeting they continued to regard each other as faithful and/or infidels, as the case might be.