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Jerusalem faith leaders Bishop Munib Younan, Sheikh al Tamimi, the Chief Islamic Justice in Jerusalem, and Rabbi David Rosen, the International Director of Inter-Religious Relations with the American Jewish Committee and the International Jewish Committee, were among the faith leaders gathered at the World Conference of Religions for Peace 8th General Assembly in Kyoto, Japan, in the end of August. The Assembly ended on 29 August with 800 delegates from more than 100 countries and all major religious traditions endorsing the Kyoto Declaration on Confronting Violence and Advancing Shared Security.
"At a time when religion is being hijacked by extremists, the religious leaders gathered in Kyoto demonstrate for all the world the power of religious communities to illuminate the path to peace when they work together," said William F. Vendley, secretary general of the World Conference of Religions for Peace (WCRP) who read out the declaration at the end of the meeting.
"The Kyoto Declaration offers a new vision of shared security that properly places religious communities at the centre of efforts to confront violence in all its forms," said Vendley, a Roman Catholic from the United States.
During the conference, special meetings of Christians, Muslims and Jews were organized to discuss the problems in the Middle East. Bishop Younan said he believed the Oslo peace accords between Israelis and Palestinians in 1993 failed have failed because there was no religious input into them.
"Religion should play a positive role and be a driving force for solution for the sufferer," Bishop Munib Younan said. S
For several years now, Christian churches in Jerusalem have collaborated to offer ecumenical prayer services for peace for about two weeks in late August. Tonight, Thursday August 17, we gathered in the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer for a prayer service in German, Arabic and English. Join us in our prayers:
Merciful God, we pray for the victims of war, terror and brutal violence in the Middle East. We pray for the peoples of Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Israel. We pray for the injured, for those whose bodies or souls are wounded - especially for the children. We pray for those who have lost their beloved ones, and for those who have been maimed. We pray for the refugees who have lost their homes, their land and their livelihood, for those who fear for their lives. We pray for those who are terrorized by the sound of fighter-jets, tanks, rockets, sirens and the other horrers of war. God, grant them strength and hope, let them not fall into despair.
The World Council of Churches sent a three-member delegation to Lebanon and Jerusalem August 10 - August 16 whose main aim was "to manifest our solidarity to the people of Lebanon and Palestine/Israel, to meet as many representatives of Churches, Muslim and Jewish leaders, civil society and the Governments." The delgation consisted of Ms. Marilia Schiller, programme executive of staff of the WCC; Pastor Jean-Arnold Clermont, President of the French Protestant Federation and of the Conference of European Churches; and Mgr. Bernard Aubertin, Archbishop of Tours in France, delegate of the Catholic Conference of French Bishops. In a statement released at a press conference Monday, Aug. 14, the delegation said they had also gone "to listen to the people we met, especially the leaders of the churches, to take back with us the voices of the people of Lebanon and Palestine/Israel, so that the churches we represent can speak out in their name."
"We heard the voices of all our partners in Lebanon who couldn’t understand the violence of destruction: more than a thousand civilian victims, crimes of war against children and infants (noting particularly Qana and the Mar Jayun convoy), destruction of infrastructure – and as the Lebanese Prime Minister told us – “a Lebanon cut in pieces”. They could not understand the violence of the military offensive, except that the intention was to destroy Lebanon. We heard also the voices of the same Christian leaders in Lebanon condemning without reservation the attacks of Hizbollah which cost the lives of eight Israeli soldiers and the capture of two others, and condemning any form of violence and the killing of civilians. But the same leaders supported the resistance of the Lebanese people underlying the unity of this country as a model of multicultural and muti-confessional understanding of democracy."