His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew underlined the important role that religions can play in preserving world peace and promoting respect for human dignity, in a spirit of solidarity and safeguarding of fundamental freedoms, in the context of the interfaith meeting organized on 4 February 2020 by the “International Commission on Human Brotherhood” in Abu Dhabi, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the signing, in the same city, of the “Declaration of Human Brotherhood” by the Pope of Rome and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar.
In his speech, the Ecumenical Patriarch noted among other things:
“In our times, the credibility of religions depends largely on their commitment to peace through interreligious dialogue and common witness in view of the great contemporary challenges. Genuine religion cannot betray earth for the sake of heaven, the present for the sake of future. It does not absolve humans from their responsibility in the world and for the world. On the contrary, for true believers, faith is to be a presupposition to approach rightly the earthly reality and its contradictions; to resist injustice and all tendencies that undermine social cohesion; to exercise critique on the declaration of economic indicators and profit as the absolute criteria of economic activity; and to reject the subordination of man to the tyranny of needs and the transformation even of children into unsatisfiable consumerists. Continue reading