On the occasion of a visit to France (10-13 February) and during a meeting with the secretary general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad, head of the Department of External Relations of the Patriarchate of Moscow, recalled that a summit of religious leaders would be held in Moscow on 3-4 July, prior to the meeting in St. Petersburg of the heads of state that form part of the G8. The summit was officially announced on 13 October last year in the course of a press conference during which Metropolitan Kirill invited a delegation of the Catholic Church also to participate in what he called a high-level meeting. The organizers of the summit count on the presence of religious leaders from China, from the German Lutheran Church, from the National Council of Churches in the USA, the Chief Rabbis of Israel, the USA and European countries, Moslem leaders from Europe, the Middle East and the Arabian peninsula, Buddhists, Hindus, leading exponents of the World Council of Churches and representatives of other international organizations. Metropolitan Kirill expressed the hope that the meeting in Moscow would play “an important role in the prevention of extremism”.
