Abtahi also said "this is the reason why we strongly emphasize the importance of interfaith dialogue, because if religions as a fundamental part of cultures, can find a way to dialogue, we may expect a brighter and more peaceful future for humanity.

Abtahi stressing that the religious society of Iran is not so balanced or very varied in terms of population, added, "if we can prepare the grounds for interfaith dialogue in Iran, we may be a good example for other countries in which followers of different religions have a more varied an balanced population."

The head of IID referring to tragic events of Iraq stated, "this situation is excruciating for the religious society. When I heard the bitter news of killing Nepalese hostages that was falsely labeled as Islamic Jihad, I felt extremely anguished because the reflection of that slaying in Nepalese society with a fairly low culture could appear in attacking mosques, bringing down their flags, marching in the streets, and burning Qurans. In the larger global society in which public opinion is more significant, this burning of Qurans and disrespecting mosques, would happen in people's minds so they would think Islam is in favor of such acts of violence."

Abtahi said in the end "in the current commotion of our world where the sound of dialogue does not reach ears, we and many other institutes have made an effort to create a soft sound of dialogue, because we believe that humanity does not have a way but turning back to dialogue, and the path of violence is bound to reach a dead-end. It is my hope that with emphasizing on common values of religions, especially "peace" which is the most important of them, we will reach a brighter horizon."

Subsequently, Dr Mobed Rustam Vahidi, the representative of Zoroastrians of Iran began his remarks by analyzing the meaning of peace in Zoroastrian creed and stated that "Zoroastrianism is a divine humanistic religion. We consider "human" the noblest of all creature who represents Ahura Mazda , God of soul and wisdom, on earth. We believe that just and victorious God, sent down human soul on earth, with his own will, to construct and develop until there is no misery or imperfection on earth."

Mobed Vahidi added, "But unfortunately we see there is a type of disagreement and violence among different groups, that is evil and against Ahura Mazda. When we humans forget love, friendship, and modesty in ourselves, we replace them with hatred, hostility, selfishness and violence."

Mobed Vahidi said, "According to philosophy of Zoroastrianism, violence is believed to be caused by ignorance and distance from God. If we invigorate divine force in ourselves, love and devotion come to us and destroy hostility and violence. I hope we can fill this empty space in our souls."

Dr Vahidi stated, "in our religion people are expected to love peace and must not try to use violence and take others under their control. We all need to do away with our weapons and try to have a peaceful social life next to each other and remember that we are all free, equal, and brothers." Mobed Vahidi, in the end, dedicated some verses of Avesta to the participants:

"May in this place the obedience toward God replace disobedience and impiety, and peace and friendship replace hostility and violence. O Ahura Mazda! May love and friendship which are wished by many come to Zoroastrian men and women."

Afterwards archbishop Sarkisian, representing Iran's Armenians, thanked IID for this program and said, "I believe that interfaith dialogue possesses paramount importance in today's world because followers of different religions get the opportunity to know one another better and get closer as a result of such dialogues; love and friendship forms between them and wherever there is peace, trust will grow between the sides."

The Archbishop quoting from Gibran Khalil Gibran said about love, "When love is talking to you, believe it because love takes you higher and purifies you."

Sarkisian stated in the end, "I liken this institute to a beautiful little candle which is illuminating its surrounding by organizing these programs. Good luck with your efforts."

At this time, Haroon Yashayayi, head of Tehran's Association of Jews began his comments by stressing the importance of dialogue in today's world that "The importance of dialogue is here that every war eventually stops with a dialogue and there is no problem that cannot be resolved by this means." He added, "Those who abandon the principle of dialogue, have in fact embraced oppression and this is in opposition with common values of monotheistic religions, especially Judaism."

Yashayayi also stated, "dialogue is formed based on human wisdom and those who deny this principle, have also denied human wisdom. If we accept the principle of dialogue we may be able to sort out a part of our problems, and this is not possible unless we accept God has created the world with huge diversity and as a result the thoughts and ideas of human beings are divergent. Interfaith dialogue can only be achieved with accepting this fact. Yashayayi ended his remarks by saying "I hope in this week of interfaith dialogue, the principle of dialogue is given more consideration so that in this age of tumult we can conceive a better tomorrow."

Continuing this dialogue Dr Muhammad-Reza Beheshti, Tehran University professor, began his remarks by saying “if we can make use of the treasure deposited in religions we each may be able to add a new thought or viewpoint which the other may not have noticed by himself. It is in this way that our dialogue goes beyond merely sitting together, which is valuable itself, and thus we can adopt a more positive and enriched approach.

Dr Beheshti continued his remarks by stating "God has different forms of manifestation in this world, especially various religions in which God has manifested Himself in different forms. Profiting from different opinions these religions bring us, helps us look at our problems from different points of view and find more effective solutions to our both domestic and international problems."

He suggested, “we can determine specific topics for our future dialogues where we each can participate with our findings from the treasure of our own religion and have dialogues to share our ideas. The result of this exchange of ideas would be a valuable work which we produce based on the fruit of the efforts of followers of all religions living together in Iran, which could be offered throughout the world of religions.”

Afterwards Dr William Pirouyon, Assyrian University professor, analyzed this issue from a scientific point of view and stated, "I speak out of the framework of the discussion of the bishops and clergypersons, I am an academic and cannot get along with this group." He added, "I believe that a distance should be considered between religions and their followers. We should distinguish Islam from Moslems and Christianity from Christians, because there are times when the followers use their religion as a tool to achieve their personal goals which may not be in accordance with principles of that particular religion." He continued, "Our effort should be to wash divine thought clean from earthly superficialities. The fundament is the same but different colors religions have put on common principles, should be washed away, because it is nothing but going astray."

Pirouyon added, "true believers, in order to free themselves from today's pitiful situation, have no way forward but gather together in groups no matter how small, and try to separate earthly superficialities from their religions and let religions save humanity in well-being and peace." He finished his comments saying “these are the steps that should be taken from this point and we can hope this way leads to success."

At this point Dr Esfandiary, professor of religions, in response to Pirouyon's comments said, "In my idea, no religion can be looked upon without its followers, because religions manifest themselves in their followers, and this is on the followers to be wise. There is no religion that can assert it is an absolute peace-seeker. Zoroaster himself is said to have been killed in battle. Jesus went to the Jerusalem temple and confronted Jews, and so did other prophets. Conflicts and wars have been present in all religions. I do not mean that religions are in favor of violence. But we all should act fairly and assume responsibility for our religions. After all we as Moslems, Jews, Christians or Zoroastrians, are heirs to the divine heritage of our religions."

Dr Esfandiary continued, "of course if religions were not there, war and bloodshed would still be there. Our world today has noticed the importance of dialogue, and we can make this world a more beautiful place to live by holding on tightly to peaceful aspects of our religions. "Life" and "piety" are inseparable but "death" has no affinity to “life”. War and violence herald death but we as religious people seek life and happiness.

Archbishop Sarkisian replied, "the main goal of religions is to lead humans to God, but they may have different approaches. Jesus entered the Jerusalem temple to purify that place; Muhammad in a similar way went to Mecca to clean Ka'ba, the house of God, from idols. But wars taking place between followers of different religions are not religious wars and are mostly rooted in human greed and avarice." The archbishop added, "perhaps the best example of such wars could be the crusades of the 10th and 12th centuries, which in fact were not Christian wars but were wars waged by Westerners to seize the wealth of the Easterners."

He mentioned, "Islam is a religion of peace in its origin, and that is also what the word "Islam" indicates. Just because Islamic nations have had various fights for different reasons throughout history, we cannot label Islam as a religion of war and violence. And also today's struggle between Israel and Palestine; the religion Moses preached does not approve of the violence and injustice of Israeli government, and they are different matters. We must be careful not to misplace the two." Sarkisian concluded stating "the most important requisite in a successful dialogue, is honesty. I pray for these dialogues to continue as straightforward as they are."

At the end of this program, Seyyed Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, congratulated Jews on coming of Jewish New Year and thanked the participants for taking part in the dialogue.

Besides this program, an exhibition from the 4th Parliament of the World Religions held in Barcelona, Spain from July 7 until July 13, was set up for participants. In this exhibition, photos and films from different stages of the parliament were put to display, and brochures from institutes and organizations that are active in the field of interfaith dialogue all over the world, were offered to those interested, whic was welcomed by participants.

Prepared by Institute for Interreligious Dialogue.