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Bush extends
invitation to Patriarch |
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Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos will be received by US President George W. Bush at the White House early next month, sources at the Patriarchate said on Tuesday. The US leader's invitation for March 5 comes in light of the Patriarch's recent high-profile initiatives to counter perceptions and views that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States constitute a chapter in the so-called "clash of civilizations and religions" theory. Vartholomeos, in fact, chaired an all-faiths meeting in Brussels in December, which was co-organized by European Commission President Romano Prodi. Some 80 high-ranking representatives from the world's three major monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - attended that meeting. Finally, the Patriarch officially visited Shiite-dominated Iran last month, where he reiterated his call for cooperation by the world's religious faiths and a rejection of ideologies that blame various forms of violence on religion. Vartholomeos is the "Primus inter pares" among Orthodox Patriarchs representing approximately 250 million Eastern Orthodox faithful around the world.
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 action@hec.greece.org
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