Interreligious dialogue in the Chapel for Europe in Brussels

People, We created you all from a single man and a single woman, and made you into races and tribes so that you should get to know one another. (Coran, al-Hujurat 49:13)

“Love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18)

“First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:24)

Actually the dream started already with the first Sunday of Advent, the day we sent the first of 7 interreligious video clips, for every Sunday of Advent – Christmas – Epiphany period, with readings, sharing and musical moments, inviting to meditations of about 15 min. This was the fruit of a collaboration between InTouch Association (fostering intercultural dialogue in Brussels), Kerkebeek Brussels Pastoral Unit (local Church), the Chapel for Europe and our interreligious friends. The particularity of this project consisted in the fact that the Christian message was accompanied by a corresponding message from other religions: Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist, allowing peoples of different cultures to “rediscover” each other.

A long expected virtual evening

Then at the end of January, just after the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and before the World Interfaith Harmony Week, some days before the new established UN International Day of Human Fraternity (4 February 2021), inspired by the Joint Declaration of Pope Francis and Grand Imam Ahmad Al-Tayyeb as well as by the Encyclical "Fratelli Tutti" (3 October 2020), we organized together a long expected Virtual Evening: “A Bishop, a Rabbi and an Imam Dream Together of a Fraternal Society”, with Jean-Pierre Delville, bishop of Liege, Rabbi Armand Benizri from the Sephardic Jewish Community in Brussels and Imam Jamal Habbachich from Molenbeek - the “Muslim” district of Brussels.

An emotional journey

To get to know our guests better, they took us on an emotional journey into their past and into their families, recalling some personal moments which shaped today their view of fraternity. Then, speaking about religions, everyone of the panellists commented some key quotations concerning fraternity from his own religion and presented some elements that spoke to them in the other religions.  Finally, the time came for an exchange with the public – more than 150 people online. The questions, some of them not easy at all concerned among others things links between religion and politics, the sources of extremism and how to prevent them, the added value of religions while promoting fraternity or the place of women in religious communities.

A culture of dialogue

Even if not all the questions could be fully answered (now we have enough material for a big follow-up conference), the speakers confirmed that they and their religious communities are already on the way to developing a culture of dialogue within wider society and that interreligious “get together”, mutual respect and solidarity are possible.

by Krystian Sowa S.J., Chapel for Europe, Brussels