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Language of faith the driving force
Publish Date: Thursday,15 May, 2008, at 02:18 AM Doha Time
Staff Reporter
A RUSSIAN Orthodox priest, who has attended the 6th Doha Conference
of Inter-faith Dialogue, said the language of faith contributed
considerably to developing mutual understanding among the
participants.
Alexander Abramov, a priest of the Russia's majority Orthodox Church,
said: "This itself raises a lot of hope about the conference's
future."
Fr Abramov, who is the United Nations' representative to the World
Russian People's Council, told Gulf Times the language of faith was
the language that every participant in such discussions was looking
forward to.
"Needless to say, conferences like this encourage delegates to air
their views on a range of subjects concerning religious faiths that
requires utmost attention," the Russian priest said.
Again, because of the familiarity of participants, discussions become
friendly and informal, added the Russian priest.
Fr Abramov said besides a lot of challenging discussions, a number of
intellectual issues were debated at this year's meeting.
"And certainly, most discussions were of a higher standard," he said.
It showed how serious the organisers were in hosting a conference of
this magnitude, with the participation of a number of important
representatives of three different faiths from all over the world.
Thanking Qatar for what he described as its excellent hospitality,
the Russian priest felt that it prompted the representatives to take
part in discussions without fail every year.
On the reported serious differences the majority Russian Orthodox
Church has with Catholic faith, the priest said the issue was being
unnecessarily blown out of proportion by some vested interests.
"Actually, the environment has undergone a sea change with the
election of Benedict XV1 as the Pope and his expected visit of
Russia is seen with a lot of hope by members of the Russian Orthodox
church."
He felt the Pope appreciated the position taken by Russian church on
a number of issues and it would go down well to smoothen the
relations between the two groups.