Interreligious Service on the UN-International Day of Peace in Vienna, Austria

UPF-Austria commemorated the “UN-International Day of Peace” by holding an Interreligious Service at the Vienna Headquarters of the Unification Movement.

The contributions were mostly made by Ambassadors of Peace who represented different religions:

Mrs. Zena Eggough, Vice President of UPF-Austria, gave the opening reading from the Old and New Testament, representing Christianity. She was followed by Mrs. Tseten Zöchbauer, the president of the Tibetan community in Austria. She reminded us that peace cannot be found where freedom is not guaranteed and that we have to speak out and take actions for the freedom of suppressed peoples.

Mr. Peter Haider who was in charge of the program, mentioned in his speech that only one month ago, on an official visit to the Vatican, the former President of Israel, Shimon Peres, suggested a “United Nations of Religions” under the leadership of the Pope. Mr. Haider then explained to the audience about True Father’s efforts many years ago to achieve this goal.

He also played a video with the speech which was held by Dr. Ban Ki-moon, UN-Secretary General, for the 2014 International Day of Peace.

The program continued with Mrs. Daniane Bornea-Friedl (Association “Joanna de Angelis”) a representative of the Spiritists’ Movement. Her homeland is Brazil where the movement has reached a substantial number of members. She explained in short what spiritism can contribute to world peace, mainly creating harmony within the individual and building peaceful relationships.

The next speaker was Mr.Yunus Mairhofer (Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat), a member of the “Ahmadiyya Muslim Community” in Vienna. He explained how the religion of Islam contributes to peace. Their community is special in the sense that they believe that the long awaited Messiah has already come in the person of Hadhrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as 1835-1908 whom they rever. Finally Bogdan Pammer, representing Youth-UPF, gave a speech on the topic of “How to create facts that promote peace”. As an example of creating peace he reported about the Youth-UPF leaders’ meeting in Sweden which he organized for young people from all over Europe. At the end of the Service Mr. Peter Haider handed over the “Ambassador of Peace” award to four new persons. The Service was supported by the Vienna Unification community, specially by the Vienna music team.

More than 150 people attended, 35 of them being guests.