Interreligious Dialogue

Interreligious dialog means more than a coexistence of different religious traditions and institutions. The dialog includes purposeful activities of collaboration between religious institutions in favour of the social peace and prosperity. The present state of religious pluralism and interreligious dialog in CEE is characterised by a decline in the influence of main churches and a growing interest in this topic in the media. The public discourses about religion and interreligious dialogue are also increasing in numbers and forms. The end of communism revived not only the pre-communist models of interreligious relations, but brought about new patterns of tolerance and cooperation. The discourses of the so-called traditional religious majorities have no more monopoly over the public sphere. At the same time, alternative views on religion(s) tend to be equally represented there as well.

Today the motivations for interreligious dialog arise from different grounds. On the one side, they are outcome of economic or political pressure to save of the societal situation of various religious institutions, and especially of those representing religious majorities. On the other side, they express theological and spiritual interests of different religious organisations, i.e. their ambitions to fulfil their mission in contemporary society. This kind of motivations and interests appear in various media discourses about general and basic questions of pluralism, religious freedom and other problems of the transition societies from CEE.

The main REVACERN related question of interreligious dialog is: What kind of knowledge is needed for both, the public sphere and religious institutions, in order successfully to manage a constructive collaboration of the CEE societies in the field of religion?