Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-24-Speech-3-113"
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"en.20080924.21.3-113"2
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"Your Holiness, Patriarch Bartholomew, it is a great honour to welcome you to this formal sitting of the European Parliament during the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue 2008. The first guest to address the European Parliament as part of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue was the Grand Mufti of Damascus in January. He is from Syria and addressed us as a messenger of peaceful Islam.
Your Holiness, you represent the Christian faith, and the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks will address the European Parliament in Strasbourg in November as a representative of the Jewish faith.
People from these three faiths – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – have lived side by side for centuries. Unfortunately, this coexistence has not always been peaceful. Even today, in the Middle East and elsewhere, there are areas marked by tensions between these communities.
We in the European Parliament support every effort to promote the peaceful coexistence of religions and cultures in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. In the Middle East, there are also examples of religious tolerance and harmonious relations between people of different faiths. When I visited Syria a short time ago, I had the opportunity to meet the spiritual leaders of the various faith communities and they assured me that in their country, good relations exist, underpinning the dialogue between religions and cultures.
The European Union is a community based on values, and one of our most fundamental values is the dignity which is inherent in every individual. In this respect, religious freedom is central to human dignity, and goes far beyond the powers invoked by state authorities. The separation of church and state, which we esteem so highly, is a guarantee of the freedom of religious communities to manage their own internal affairs and external relations. These principles are reaffirmed in the Treaty of Lisbon, whose entry into force we are seeking to secure.
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, with its seat in Phanar in Istanbul, was founded in the 4th century and is an important spiritual centre for 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. Phanar means 'beacon', and you, Your Holiness, have always been a beacon of reconciliation and peace for the faithful in the Orthodox world and beyond.
The latest enlargement of the European Union has brought countries with Orthodox majorities, such as Cyprus, Bulgaria and Romania, into the EU, while Greece has been a member since 1981. The late Pope John Paul II, who addressed the European Parliament in 1988, used the following metaphor to describe this: he said that after overcoming its division, Europe is breathing with both its lungs again. We could use this metaphor again today to describe the richness of the enlarged EU, brought about by the different perspectives of Western and Eastern Christianity.
Your Holiness, we thank you for your visit. You are one of the very few figures to address the European Parliament for a second time. You were here in 1994, and you are honouring us with a further address on the occasion of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. We are looking forward to hearing your speech.
May I now invite you to address the European Parliament. Thank you."@en1
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