Two senior Seventh-day Adventist leaders joined participants of a
Russian government-organized conference on religious freedom in pledging
to fight against a growing “perversion of religion” worldwide by those
who use the language of faith to justify violence and terrorism.
The Third International Forum on Religion and Peace, a rare gathering
of leaders from across Russia’s religious and political spectrum, met
Oct. 29 in the Great Hall of Moscow’s President Hotel and included
scholars, public officials, and religious leaders representing the
Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish, Catholic, and Islamic communities.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church was represented by Ganoune Diop,
director of the public affairs and religious liberty department for the
world church, and Oleg Goncharov, director of the public affairs and
religious liberty department in the church’s Euro-Asia Division.
In his address to the assembly, Diop focused on the foundational
place of religious freedom within the pantheon of human rights. He
emphasized that it is a God-given right not subject to political
agendas, and he urged all those present to work together to preserve and
extend this “first freedom.”
On the day before the forum, Diop and Goncharov visited the State
Duma, Russia’s national parliament, to meet various public officials
responsible for church-state relations in the country. They also met
with Alexander Kudryavtsev, who heads one of Russia’s most active public
organizations focused on religious liberty, the Russian Association for
the Protection of Religious Freedoms.
At the conclusion of the forum, participants adopted a resolution
expressing deep concern about rising religious extremism. They also
urged greater action on the part of the international community in
stemming the continued destruction of Christian communities in the
Middle East and Africa, and they expressed solidarity with all those
suffering persecution for their faith.
The event was jointly organized by Russia’s Presidential Council for
Cooperation with Religious Organizations, and Moscow’s Department of
National Policy, Inter-Regional Relations, and Tourism. It was supported
by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Orthodox Church
Patriarch Kirill, along with other religious and public leaders.
Pastor Franklin Graham, son of well-known evangelist Billy Graham,
attended the forum, along with Metropolitan Hilarion, director of the
department for external church relations of the Russian Orthodox Church,
and Allahshukur Pashazade, chair of the Religious Council of the
Caucasus.
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