On April 28, a session of renewed advisory board on implementation of the state ethnics-related policy in St.Petersburg took place in Smolny.
On April 28, a session of renewed advisory board on implementation of the state ethnics-related policy in St.Petersburg took place in Smolny.
The Council session was for the first time attended by the representatives of traditional confessions of St.Petersburg: Nazariy, Bishop of Vyborg; Mufti Zhafyar Nasibullovich Ponchaev, Dean of the Cathedral Mosque of St.Petersburg; Mark Davidovich Grubarg, Chairman of the Board of the St.Petersburg Jewish religious community at the Great Choral Synagogue; Buda Balzhievich Badmaev, Superior of Gunzechoyney Datsan; Priest Hyacinth Destivel, Prior of the parish of St.Catherine of Alexandria in St.Petersburg; Arri Matveevich Kugappi, Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria; Father Sarkis, Dean of St.Catherine’s Armenian Church; Valentin Stanislavovich Dovgan, Managing Director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Opening the session of the Council, V.V.Tikhonov, Vice-Governor of St.Petersburg, emphasized the leading role of religious organizations in the consolidation of different people, regardless of their nationality and religion.
Next, A.V. Prokhorenko, Chairman of St.Petersburg Committee for External Relations, gave to the participants a report describing the activities and projects of the “Program of harmonization of intercultural, interethnic, and interconfessional relations, and growing up the culture of tolerance in St.Petersburg for 2011–2015” in 2011. Their comments to the report shared Nazariy, Bishop of Vyborg; A.G.Musaev, representative of CPO “Azerbaijan Ethnic-Cultural Autonomy in St.Petersburg”, and Valentin Stanislavovich Dovgan, Managing Director of the Evangelical Lutheran Church.
The second item on the agenda was the report of L.A. Musiyenko, Acting Director of the State Museum of the History of Religion, who spoke on the developing and implementing, in addition to existing projects for schoolchildren, a specialized museum program for students of religious educational institutions of the traditional confessions of St.Petersburg “St.Petersburg: Traditions and Culture”. The purpose of the program is the formation of common civil (all-Russia) identity based on the historical tradition of intercultural and interreligious cooperation in St.Petersburg, and building a culture of voluntary tolerance to the way of thinking and life of people of other ethnicity and religious affiliation.
The tradition to report at the Council on the work of ethnic-cultural associations of the city was continued by B.G. Berulava, Vice-President of the NGO “Georgian Ethnic-Cultural Autonomy of St.Petersburg”,.
News Source: St.Petersburg Committee for External Relations