Media Advisor Sheikh Amer Zeineddine participated, on behalf of the Sheikh Aql of the Unitarian Druze Community, Sheikh Dr. Sami Abi Al-Muna, in the meeting and symposium held by the Antonine Technical Institute in Dekwaneh on its campus, in cooperation with the Episcopal Committee for “Christian-Muslim Dialogue,” and delivered a speech on his behalf regarding the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” stating: “His Eminence, the Sheikh Aql of the Unitarian Druze Community, Sheikh Dr. Sami Abi Al-Muna, honored me by tasking me to convey his greetings to the esteemed audience and his deep appreciation to the organizers of this inclusive gathering, which holds a special character amidst the atmosphere of anxiety experienced by Lebanon, the peoples of the region, and the world, due to disturbances that would not have occurred were it not for the decline of human values, the faltering of dialogue paths, and everything that would strengthen togetherness and ensure the success of the journey of faith and the sacrifice that such homelands deserve.”
He added: “We gather today with you around the contents of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together, harvesting together the essence of stages through which the world has passed, with its rapid transformations and upheavals, which have yielded realistic results and important approaches. Principles were formulated, blending their aesthetics between religious creativity, the exploits of human brotherhood, and the meanings of the spirit of life, toward a world more humane and of greater human dignity. This is based on a single triad of faith in God, founded on Christian love, Islamic mercy, and Unitarian human fraternity. The authors of this document early on foresaw the fate of this planet, which stands today on the edge of an abyss of absurdity and ruin. They wrote in golden ink commandments before God and history, defending the values of peace, justice, goodness, beauty, and living together, as a remaining lifeline from destruction, protecting humanity from the evil of violence, self-destruction, and the genocides visible before us, amid the multiplicity of concepts of the prevailing culture of death, under a dirty game between religion and politics to produce a language of extremism and excommunication, so that ships may plow through the sea of sorrow, from the illusion of salvation to the trap of what is more severe than oppression and injustice. The alternative is to spread a culture of tolerance, to build a bridge of crossing from hatred to peace, and from sectarianism to true citizenship.”
He continued: “It goes without saying that the dialogue required between believers, conditioned by the culture of the spirit of life and the meanings of existence, serves to alleviate societal anxieties in all their forms, if we draw from those values which His Eminence Imam Ahmed Al-Tayeb and His Holiness Pope Francis have saturated in that document, which irrigates the veins of the spaces of togetherness and the foundations of spiritual, human, and social commonalities that suffer from drought. It then becomes the effective leaven for dialogues between believers that all people of righteousness long for, and which only the absence of the human conscience and the exclusion of religious morality can fail to achieve, manifesting in tragedies as is the case in our world today. However, the goal of tolerance remains in what transcends the acceptance of the other as they are, for all that must be done in connection with souls and minds, so that we may become true peacemakers. As it stands, the winter is cold for those who do not possess the warmth of the meanings in the words of the document, which is like a sacred trust. We seek guidance from it for those values and lift the secret veils, in order to provide entrances and loopholes that protect us from the vicissitudes of time and preserve for us Lebanon—the charter, the constitution, the formula, the entity, and all the hopes of the future, which cannot be reduced to a thought that does not simulate the features of its diversity and the foundations of its existence.”
He concluded: “It is our collective responsibility at the level of spiritual authorities, scholars, clergy, intellectuals, and religious, educational, cultural, media, and social institutions to realize together the message of human fraternity.”
Sheikh Zeineddine was then presented with an honorary shield for the occasion.
