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The International Secretariat
of the INTERPARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY ON ORTHODOXY (I.A.O.)
in an attempt to summarize all those interesting views
which were recorded during the conference co organized
with the EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT and the EUROPEAN COMMISSION
in Athens from 17 to 19 of April 2005 on the topic “NATION,
RELIGIONS – ORTHODOXY AND THE NEW EUROPEAN REALITY”,
and draw useful conclusions, notes the following:
The changes taking place nowadays in the European region
cannot be characterized simply by the free movement
of people; nor can the necessary political unity of
the European Union and the whole of Europe be anticipated
as a consequence of the European common market of capital
and services. In any case, the goals defined a few years
ago by the Lisbon Council were never part of the public
consciousness of the citizens of Europe; as a result,
they collapsed and disappeared. {“We do not ally
states, we unite peoples” (Jean Monnet, 30 April
1952) }
These findings are guiding European Union’s political
leadership towards the need to make the necessary political
decisions in view of the future goals of the European
venture, which will highlight the significance of tradition,
defining the contents which make up “European
culture” on the basis of purely objective historical
and cultural facts, without self-serving or politicking,
which not only distort European history but, in the
end, undermine the prospects for Europe.
Such a venture, that of European integration, requires
the broadest political cohesion based on European solidarity
among all European peoples and traditions. This solidarity
will not be based on economic expediencies, which, in
order to be served, alter European history and reverse
the traditions of the peoples of Europe. Europe’s
future cannot be based on the falsification of European
history, the womb of global history, with its roots
in Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and Christianity, or
on half-truths, supposedly promulgated in the name of
coexistence and tolerance.
Besides, the specific features of European culture,
such as tolerance and mutual respect towards others,
have their references in Christianity, and constitute
the healthy foundations and the necessary guarantee
of the coexistence of peoples and traditions.
Moreover, such a venture demands a search for and identification
of forces capable of strengthening European solidarity
and contributing to the formation of a common model
of values which should govern the public and social
life of millions of people. These are forces that will
constitute a framework of solidarity, less remote than
Parliaments and Institutions and therefore closer to
European citizens. The future of Europe will, in the
end, be decided by the existence of these forces and
how well they respond over the next years.
The conference recorded the role and significance of
the concepts of “nation” and “religion”
in a multi-national, multi-cultural and integrated Europe,
in the modern world and the risks caused by this integration.
It also stated that the future of Europe cannot be defined
in defiance of national cultures; nor can it be defined
on the basis of antagonism towards a specific religion.
The possible risks- which do, indeed, exist- from the
public presence and role of European religions are being
significantly reduced, minimized, since it is clear
that the presence of religion in public life cannot
be reduced merely to the public role of churches, nor
can it bring into question the ideas and views about
European public life which currently prevail.
Moreover, conflicts of a religious nature occurring
in the European region usually obscure political and
social causes which must be handled as such, before
they acquire a religious tinge or become an excuse for
nationalistic conflicts.
Additionally, the conference by and large succeeded
in its efforts:
-To record concerns growing in Central Europe about
religions, Christianity, national identity, the European
constitution, and the public role of European religions
-To record the thinking developing in Eastern Europe
on the issue of Orthodoxy, other religions, national
consciousness, the relationship between Orthodoxy and
nationhood, cultural relations with Western and Central
Europe etc. In other words, to allow members of the
I.A.O. to keep up with the thinking which is emerging
at the level of parliamentarians, churches and researchers
all over Europe, concerning multi-cultural societies
and multiple identities, and also to present their own
thinking on the topic.
-To combine by osmosis the I.A.O.’s thinking with
the concerns expressed by other European politicians,
who have experienced different religious and cultural
traditions, from various regions of Europe and the world.
-To discover and record the views of major political
parties of the European Parliament on the issues of
“identities”.
-To promote to the whole European environment the existence
of the I.A.O. as a political organization whose aim,
among much else, is to contribute positively to the
more general thinking on the problems of multi-culturalism.
-To inform European politicians and researchers that
the I.A.O., through the activities it has undertaken
and motions it has passed, has contributed to the more
general thinking on the future of Europe, and constitutes
an organized expression of culture and the understanding
of the cultural dimensions of religions.
An initiative of this kind shows the I.A.O. to be a
force which is actively contributing to the formation
of a Europe based on the synthesis and osmosis of different
cultural reference points, and, in the end, is contributing
to European integration.
The conference was positive in its appraisal of the
text “The spiritual and cultural dimension of
Europe” drawn up by a working group on the initiative
of the president of the European Commission, Mr. Romano
Prodi, and praised this initiative. It also noted that
the I.A.O. agrees with most of the concerns expressed
in the text, and with most of its proposals as well.
However, the I.A.O. feels obliged to note that:
- These findings, as well as the suggestions of the
text, are, in the end, the views of large parts of the
European population. The fact that, in order for them
to be expressed and recorded, the president of the European
Commission was required to undertake a special initiative-
an initiative which was doubtless taken under the pressure
of specific circumstances and which functioned outside
the structures and procedures of the EU- may be indicative
of the modus operandi of the European Union bodies and
the regulations governing their operation. It would
seem that this does not always successfully guarantee
the expression and recording of the views and wishes
of the citizens of Europe. Critical questions concerning
the future of Europe or the supports on which this must
rest, should be put to European citizens independently,
through direct procedures (e.g. universal referendums),
rather than the response being conjectured through the
processes of political parties or organizations.
- Since 1993, the year of its foundation, the INTERPARLIAMENTARY
ASSEMBLY ON ORTHODOXY has made a number of similar conclusions
and remarks, which unfortunately have not received the
attention they deserved by European Union agencies.
Finally, the International Secretariat of the INTERPARLIAMENTARY
ASSEMBLY ON ORTHODOXY feels obliged to thank the EUROPEAN
PARLIAMENT and the EUROPEAN COMMISSION for their cooperation
in the conference.
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