On November 19-20, 2018, the UN Alliance of Civilizations held a global forum on Partnership for Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace at the UN headquarters in New York. It gathered together over one thousand political, religious and public figures from UN member states.
The opening of the event was attended by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, the chair of the UN General Assembly 73d session Ms. Maria Fernanda Aspimosa Garces, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and Spain’s deputy Prime Minister Ms. Carmen Calvo Poyato. The gathering was greeted by the UN Secretary-General high representative Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser who thanked the attendees for their participation in the work of the alliance. The Russian delegation was led by K. Shuvalov, special representative of the Russian Federation Ministry of Foreign Affairs for cooperation with the Alliance of Civilizations.
With the blessing of Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate department for external church relations (DECR), the event was attended by Hegumen Nikodim (Balyasnikov), a cleric of the Patriarchal St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York, who took part in the work of the section on Interreligious and Inter-cultural Dialogue: an Instrument for Preventing Conflicts and Post-conflict World Order and the section on Many Cultures, One Humanity: Role and Responsibility of Religious Leaders and Organizations Based on Faith in Building Peaceful and Inclusive Societies, the site of the Moscow Patriarchate Representation in USA reports.
DECR Communications Service
