Inter-religious meeting concludes in Bahrain

Modern states, while striving to protect individual religious freedoms, continue to persecute the independent legality of religions, a leading international theologian argued yesterday.

The negative stance of state authorities toward religion can be seen even in liberal and democratic regimes despite the official constitutional guarantee of religious freedoms in all Western countries, said Professor Vlassios Phidas, rector of the post-graduate studies in orthodox theology, University of Athens, during the last session of international inter-religious conference hosted by Bahrain.

The 10th Islamic-Christian Dialogue Conference, in which 83 religious leaders and scholars from around the world have taken part, ended yesterday with a renewed call to continue the dialogue between the two faiths and a joint action to promote peaceful co-existence.

In the Treaty of Maastricht, which has been put forward as the constitutional declaration of the operation of the European Union, "any reference whatsoever to the term 'religion' or 'church' is systemically avoided, even though the cultural heritage of the people of Europe could not be understood without at least a theoretical recognition of the decisive role played by religion in the history of European civilisation," said Phidas.

While the freedom of individual beliefs are being protected by most state constitutions and universal conventions, religions, by themselves, and religious sensitivities have not been accorded the same protection, he told Gulf News later.

"The state authority always fear, even it doesn't respect, the social realism that nurtures the undeniable durability of religious faiths," he explained.

Furthermore, when one religion wins certain freedoms, then directly or indirectly all religions win the same freedoms, even if some take precedence over others.

Also when one religion is deprived of some fundamental freedoms, then it is certain that sooner or later, this deprivation will extend to other religions.

He hoped that the conference proved to be a cornerstone for an imitative to promote religious freedoms.