Christian-Islamic Week in Germany

By Ahmad Al-Matboli, IOL Correspondent

The co-existence week will include collective prayers, inter-faith meetings, a soccer game and a theatrical show.

BERLIN — German Christians and Muslims will launch Sunday, May 6, the "Week of Co-Existence" in the country's fifth-largest city of Frankfurt, bringing together representatives of different faiths to promote social harmony.

"The Christian-Islamic co-existence week aims to build bridges of understanding between all sects of German society," the Protestant Church of Frankfurt, one of the event's organizers, said in a press release on its website Friday, May 4.

"Many Germans do not know enough about foreigners," it said, adding that minorities in general have misinformation about one another.

The week, to run until Sunday, May 13, is co-organized by a number of Muslim and Christian activists in the city.

It will include collective prayers, inter-faith meetings, a soccer game and a theatrical show.

The co-existence week is planned to kick off with a collective prayer at a Frankfurt church to be followed by a discussion forum about Christian-Islamic co-existence in Germany.

A flurry of seminars will be held on the week's sidelines to discuss issues of worship, education, and religion in the media.

Collective Prayers

On Friday, May 11, Christian and Jewish clerics will visit the Taqwa mosque in Frankfurt and perform collective prayers there.

A day later, a Muslim-Christian soccer game will be held to help enhance dialogue between the two faiths to be followed by a theatrical show about dialogue among civilizations.

The week will conclude with a collective prayer at the Protestant Church in Frankfurt.

"The week focuses on Christianity and Islam, whose followers make up the majority of people in the city," Elona Clemens, the official in charge of the inter-faith dialogue with the Protestant Church told the Frankfurter Neue Presse daily.

"It is also important to engage Jews in the week," she added.

Unal Kaimcki, deputy chairman of the Religious Authority, in Hessen, agreed.

"This week is melting all cultures and religions found in Germany in one pot," he said.

He said Muslim-Christian co-existence is picking up steam.

"Muslim parents, for instance, prefer to enroll their children at conservative Christian kindergartens rather than state nurseries, which sideline religion," he said.

German Muslims have championed several initiatives to clear misconceptions about Islam.

In October, mosques across Germany opened up doors for visitors from other faiths as part of the "Open Mosque Day" to tell them correct and untwisted information about the Muslim faith.

German priests and imams reciprocated on April 7 goodwill feelings with each group visiting the place of worship of the other and saying prayers jointly in a rare magnificent scene of Muslim-Christian fraternity.

There are some 3.2 million Muslims in Germany and Islam comes third after Protestant and Catholic Christianity.

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