Your Eminences, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,                                   

It is a privilege to greet the religious leaders and parliamentary representatives from many countries gathered here today.

I congratulate the Assembly, for two decades of achievements in international parliamentary cooperation and for partnership with other interreligious and intergovernmental bodies.

Today we discuss «Orthodox Historic Communities in Europe and around the world». Some of those Orthodox historic communities are facing an existential threat created by Extremism and violence in the Middle East. We at the International Dialogue Centre, KAICIID, are working hard to support peaceful solutions to this threat.

To support diversity, tolerance and social cohesion, we urge governments to call upon the power of religious communities as a force of good. Religious values and religious cooperation in international relations have never been needed more than today.

Through dialogue, we can build sustainable, positive change for all. By promoting interreligious and intercultural dialogue between religious leaders, we can support peace, pluralism and coexistence.

That is the vision shared by our Founding States and it is the foundation of the International Dialogue Centre.  The Centre is the world’s first intergovernmental organisation dedicated to fostering interreligious and intercultural dialogue. Now the Centre is now 3 years old, the Centre was founded by Austria, Saudi Arabia and Spain. The Holy See is a founding observer. We are also the only intergovernmental organisation with a multireligious Board of Directors. The Board includes nine eminent religious leaders representing Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism.

In this initiative we are pleased to acknowledge the invaluable support of His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul. Furthermore the Metropolitan of France, His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel is one of our esteemed and very active Board members.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we at the Centre have a mandate to build bridges that link different worldviews, different religious and cultural groups. We work as interpreters, connectors, and promoters. Our goal is to make equal, open and unbiased dialogue possible where it never existed before.

For instance, we are organising a multireligious consultation in Athens partnership with the Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with representatives of the Christian and Muslim communities in the Middle East. The consultation is an opportunity to openly and honestly consider how dialogue can support diversity and the rights of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East.

The Consultation is part of "Dialogue between Islam and Christianity" that the Ecumenical Patriarchate initiated in partnership with Islamic organizations. It is a dialogue to facilitate peace and reconciliation. This dialogue complements the Centre’s initiative “United against Violence in the Name of Religion”. This initiative is driven by the commitment of religious leaders of all faiths to uphold the shared citizenship of all religious communities in the Middle East and across the world. Last November, the Centre convened an interreligious conference in Vienna. Religious leaders of Christian, Muslim and other minority religious communities from Iraq, Syria and the larger Middle East region joined in one voice to denounce violence in the name of religion.

A few weeks ago in Beirut, we held a follow-up event with diverse religious leaders.  We will continue this dialogue in Athens in the coming weeks.

Since April, we support the UN Office for Genocide Prevention to implement a twelve-month Action Plan to recruit religious leaders from around world to make a personal commitment to combat the incitement to violence that could lead to atrocity crimes.

All of us have a responsibility to safeguard religious and cultural diversity. We must support the rights of religious communities to continue to live in peace and respect in the homes they have had for centuries. A shared sense of common citizenship in pluralistic societies is of immense benefit to all of us.

Once more, I commend your work on this important initiative, and wish you a successful 22nd General Assembly.

Thank you