The Secretary General of the I.A.O., Dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, accompanied by the I.A.O. Advisor Dr. Kostas Mygdalis, held a meeting at the Hellenic Parliament with the leadership of the Philos Project Organization. On behalf of the Organization, the President and Executive Director, Mr. Robert Nicholson, the Deputy Director, Mr. Luke Moon, the Deputy Director, Ms. Mariam Wahba, and Mr. Endy Zemenides, executive director of the Hellenic American leadership Council HALC, participated at the meeting.
During the meeting, the head of the I.A.O. condemned the instrumentalization of religion, with the most characteristic example being the conversion of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople into a mosque in 2020, and he informed about the awareness campaign of the international community promoted by the I.A.O. As he stressed, “we must not let this illegal act be forgotten. Because then the offender is corrupt. He considers he is allowed to do everything. We therefore, hope that this campaign will be extended elsewhere and soon to the USA as well.”
At the same time, he referred to the initiatives for the protection of Christians in the Middle East, where “unfortunately, the “Arab Spring” has turned into a heavy winter for Christians, who are pursued by fundamentalists and due to difficult living conditions they are leaving their homes. And we believe that this is a field of common action, which has a lot to offer in the service of the noble goal of survival of Christianity in the Middle East”.
The “Philos Project,” which held its conference in Athens on 1-3 October, aims to promote the coexistence of different religions in Middle East countries, emphasizing the protection of their Christian communities.
