Today's religion has every opportunity to solve all problems human life may be posing, globalisation being no exception, he said-an opinion the entire gathering shared.
Islam and the Russian Orthodox Church share alarm with globalisation, added Mr. Eraki. As he sees it, the human race owes poverty, ignorance, moral decline and terrorism to the predominance of material values. Research and technical progress have their human value only when they go hand-in-hand with peace, love and friendship, he said.
"Spiritual and cultural expansion brings total unification in its wake," said Bishop Theophanes, Russian spokesman. "It has to be counterweighted by joint efforts of the various religious communities and international organisations for the sake of genuine equal cultural and information exchanges. Such exchanges are to confirm in the world alongside with efforts to protect the identity of nations and other human communities.
"We must work to have the religious world-outlook recognised as legitimate basis for work of social importance and major influence on the international law and activities of international organisations." As the bishop sees it, "a multipolar, multiconfessional and multicultural world" is among principal criteria of contemporaneity. "To be able to live in a world like that is a prerequisite for one's own safety, and that of one's neighbours."
