DECR representatives take part in event devoted to International Holocaust Remembrance Day
A commemoration ceremony took place at the Jewish Museum and the Center of Tolerance in Moscow, devoted to the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and the complete lifting of the siege of Leningrad.
The event was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Russia’s Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, President of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia A. Boroda; chairman of the Jewish Museum patrons board Victor Vekselberg; state officials, ambassadors of foreign countries and war veterans. From the Moscow Patriarchate’s department for external church relations (DECR) there were Rev. Dimitry Safonov, DECR secretary for interreligious relations; and S. Melnik, DECR secretariat for interreligious relations and secretariat of the Interreligious Council in Russia.
In his speech, President Putin noted in particular, ‘Through their solidarity the Soviet people gained the grandiose Great Victory, and today the interreligious, interethnic harmony is the basis of our statehood… It is my conviction that today’s politicians and religious and public leaders are obliged to do all that is possible to preserve now, in the 21st century, the historical memory and not let the weeds of nationalist ideology sprout in whatever forms it may be: anti-Semitism, Rusophobia or any other phobia built on hate. Our common task is to protect from any threat the values of peace and humanism and the most important value – the human life’.
The attendees saw a film on the extermination camp ‘Sobibor’ in which the only successful uprising to happen during the war took place under the leadership of Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky.
Source: mospat.ru
