Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Beirut (Agenzia Fides) - The Islamic-Christian summit scheduled for today, Monday, August 31, to be held at the Maronite patriarchal see in Bkerké, has been postponed until a later date. This was reported by Lebanese official agencies, adding that, however, even today meetings continued with political representatives and Christian members at the patriarchal see in Bkerké. We currently have not been officially communicated the reasons that led to the postponement of the Islamic-Christian summit, but according to Lebanese media the meeting has been postponed for lack of participation of some Muslim leaders.
The summit was supposed to be the occasion to express the common concern of the leaders of different Christian and Muslim religious communities, due to the institutional paralysis that immobilizes the Country of the Cedars, where the office of the President of the Republic, reserved to a Maronite Christian, has been vacant now since May 2014. A dramatic situation, made untenable by the huge influx of Syrian refugees in Lebanon and from the exploding and social unrest.
In recent days, in an attempt to verify all the practical ways for a solution to the institutional crisis, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai met, one by one, the leading Lebanese politicians, for long and intensive talks. (GV) (Agenzia Fides 31/08/2015)
