Cyprus in the limelight

“Placing Cyprus in the limelight”: Marco Impagliazzo, President of the Community of Sant’Egidio, interviewed by SIR Europe, described it as a main reason for the twenty-second edition of the meeting of religions and cultures in dialogue, held November 15-18 in this Mediterranean Island. The event – co-organized with the Orthodox Church of Cyprus – will open on Saturday with a Catholic Eucharistic celebration followed by an Orthodox ceremony and two intense days of debates and workshops that will conclude with a common prayer in the centre of Nicosia on Tuesday 18th. In 2004 Cyprus became a member of the European Union. However since 1974, when Turkey invaded the Northern part of the island, the Greek-Cypriot area is separated from the Turkish-Cypriot area that was self-proclaimed as autonomous state recognized only by Ankara’s government. When did you decide that Cyprus was to be the meeting’s venue? “Each one of our meetings takes place on the invitation of the local church. This is the second time that we work with the Orthodox after the experience in Romania in 1998. Last year, during the meeting in Naples, held the very same day of the visit of Pope Benedict XVI, Chrysostomos II, archbishop of Nea Giustiniana and of All Cyprus, told us he had been impressed by our work and asked us to hold the meeting on the Island. Chrysostomos is very sensitive and committed in the ecumenical discourse and the Orthodox Church of Cyprus is one of the sponsors of the “Dream” project that we are implementing throughout ten African Countries for Aids treatment. It’s a rare and positive example of cooperation between the Catholics and the Orthodox faithful. There already exists a deep bond between the two Churches although ecclesiological unity has still to be achieved”. Among the many religious dignitaries attending the event – Muslims, Jews, Christians and Hindus – for diplomatic reasons, the patriarchs of Athens and Constantinople won’t be attending the event. What do you hope will be the aftermath of the meeting? “We would like our presence to contribute to the peace process that is currently at a standstill. Cyprus is the only country in Western Europe that is under military occupation and is still divided by a wall. We will also bring concrete proposals like the undertaking of restoration works for the places of worship of the Christians, in the Turkish part, and of the Muslim places of worship in the Greek-Orthodox part of the island. We are also trying to shift one of the round tables to the Turkish-Cypriot area while during the final celebration we will propose a gesture of reconciliation. This isn’t a religious conflict, it’s just political”. What are the most important novelties of this year’s meeting?“Cyprus was chosen also since we want to work for peace in the Mediterranean, which world peace also depends on. For this, special attention will be devoted to the questions of Israel/Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq. Today, the Mediterranean, the cradle of religions, is also a place of suffering triggering immigration tragedies. This is another important topic that will be addressed during this event, along with poverty. Special attention will be devoted also to Africa, Latin America, Asia and to women. The inaugural assembly will be co-chaired by Francoise Rivière, from Unesco, and by Siti Musdah Mulia, Islamic jurist from Indonesia, who is an opponent of capital punishment, while Ingrid Betancourt will be one of the keynote speakers”. The archbishop of Krakow, Msgr. Stanislaw Dziwisz, recalled the figure of Pope John Paul II. What do you consider to be the most important heritage left by Pope Wojtyla?“Our annual meetings stemmed on the wake of the World Day of Prayers for Peace held in Assisi in 1986. We are grateful to John Paul II for having had this intuition at the time, in the very midst of the Cold War. He was one of the first to understand and to claim that the true names of religion had to be peace, love and reconciliation. And not violence, death and terrorism, that it risked turning into from 2001 onwards, after September 11 and its aftermath”.