Challenges of time require consolidation of all traditional religions

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Today the Fifth Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions has opened in Astana. The main topic of the forum is “The Dialogue of Religious Leaders and Political Activists in Favor of Peace and Development.” Many powerful politicians and religious activists of the world will participate in the event. Ahead of the forum, Rabbi Alexander Boroda, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, told journalists why an inter-religious dialogue was so important nowadays.

According to him, “today Russia has a very good inter-religious dialogue on the issue of interaction of religion with the secular power, the issue of coordination of joint efforts. And one of the tasks is to share our experience at the forum in Astana with representatives of traditional religions in other countries.”

Speaking about the experience of previous congresses of leaders of world religions, Alexander Boroda stressed that “the forum has shown its viability and urgency. Its urgency is growing every year. It is related to today’s challenges such as moral, ethical, religious, extremist challenges. They require assessment, consolidation of the unity of all traditional religions. And these forums allow us to work out a common position on the past events that happen around us at the level of revaluation of the established right, moral, ethical coordinates. Society has lived according to them for many years, but now they have started to change and are exposed to a lot of criticism.”

“People are looking forward to an assessment by representatives of traditional religions: what they think about it, they are not afraid of any economic or political consequences, as religious leaders stated that it corresponds to the scripture, that unites all of us. It is a tribute to conjuncture, which has never been able to enter certain norms that we continue living together more than one millennium,” the President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia said.

Alexander Boroda stressed that Moscow and Astana are two places with very good practice and very good traditions on the interaction of basic traditional religions. “I would like our common example to spread further, and our joint efforts will allow many conflicts that exist in today’s world to be resolved. Unfortunately, we see today that wars, discords and religious conflicts happen not in one, but in many countries. I am sure that such forums support a sobering of politicians, individual marginals and extremists of religions in order for the world to live in peace, love and calm,” the Rabbi concluded.