His Beatitude John X’s speech In the conference…

The Conference of Civilizations and cultures in Bahrain

His Beatitude John X’s speech

In the conference of “Civilizations in the Service of Humanity”

Manamah, May 05,2014

 

Your Majesties;

Ladies and Gentlemen;

We are pleased to be with you Here in Bahrain responding to the royal invitation. We greet you and feel grateful for your hospitality and send our deep greetings to the good people of Bahrain.

We came here holding the peace of Christ and the meekness of His teachings. We grant you the greetings of love and fraternity in our Lord, Who created every soul and has power over times and ages. We greet you in God, Almighty, Who pours out of His light on the creation, and overshadows the whole world with the teachings of religions which share the same heavenly message praying to That Who lives in heaven and looking for His holy presence in peace and harmony that reflect His glory. “God is love” as Saint John says in his epistle. And through our love for each other, regardless of our religions, we witness for the One God, the Creator of all and the Lord of love. We are not gathering here to testify our fraternity, Muslims and Christians. We are gathering here to say that humanity was built by civilizations’ convergence and the cooperation between religions, and that fraternity between religions is the essence of its Godly message. 

“O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted”, this is what the Holy Koran says and what has been testified through a mutual history between Muslims and Christians, especially in these lands. And here we are today amongst you testifying that this beautiful country, that accommodates in it all colors, is an icon that reflects our past and present, a past that we lived and a present that we are still living in this East.  

Talking about our Arab East, we may affirm that the tolerant Christianity and the tolerant Islam are the lungs of our East. But its heart, and the heart of world peace, is the coexistence between each other. And God rendered the Orthodox Church of Antioch a gift, which is to be a bridge between these two lungs. This Church that has an Orthodox identity, with an oriental tendency, believes in dialogue, belongs to these lands, and committed to its Arabism. And we are honored to be one of the patriarchs of Antioch who were given the title of “the Patriarch of the Arabs” by our Muslim brothers, since Gregory IV in the early twentieth century, the patriarch that made no difference between a Muslim and Christian in times of famine. Then Ilias IV who called the world and Muslims to support him in his and our case, the Case of Al-Quds, in the conference of the Islamic countries in Lahore 1974, till Ignatius VI who has played an important role fulfilling the compromise at the civil war in Lebanon. This title proves that our Antiochian Church has been always side by side with East cases, reflecting the suffering of its human, and looking for his good and stability.

We came here, brethren, holding this power, wishing success for this conference, praying to pass from theorization in our conferences, despite its importance, to application. Our prayers and hope is to pave the way for the language of tolerance, through these meetings, to find its way into peoples’ minds, reaching every house in the Arab community, Muslim and Christian. The most precious treasure in the world is to meet the other, the other who was created by God the Lord and Creator. We are called upon, brethren, in this conference to plant the seeds of openness and tolerance, not only in our hearts which are already full of them, but we are called upon to water them in the whole world despite the difficulty of our ages.  

It is true that each of us inherits his religion form the womb of his mother, but the difference of religion should not scatter us. We may inherit a religion from our mothers’ wombs, but the womb of humanity renders us a fraternity and unity, through which we may witness for the Lord of Heavens and for the light of His peace. That is why I allow myself from this conference to send an urgent call for the whole international community, calling it to work harder for peace in Syria, and to stop supporting the spirit of terrorism and extremism, pushing all parties to the dialogue and the peaceful solution. The salvation of Syria will be fulfilled by meeting the other. The salvation of Syria will be guaranteed by the unity of its land, and the unity of its children.

From here I send my call to free all the abducted.