Geneva, 29-30 October 2026. Official visit of the IAO leadership to the IPU and WCC

The leadership of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IAO), namely the IAO Secretary General, Dr. Maximos Charakopoulos, and the President of the IAO General Assembly, Mr. Ioan Vulpescu, accompanied by the IAO Advisor, Dr. Kostas Mygdalis, traveled to Geneva, following the invitation of the Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), Ambassador Anda Filip.

During his address, the IAO Secretary General highlighted “We openly support every initiative that promotes interfaith dialogue and the coordinated efforts of the parliamentary and religious spheres to mitigate the challenges of the modern world. Our presence at the historic headquarters of the IPU, the so-called “House of Parliaments”, testifies precisely to the significant role that we are called to play in the turbulent times we are going through.”

The IAO Secretary General agreed with the head of the world organization of parliaments on the need for a comprehensive strategic cooperation in the field of promoting dialogue between parliamentary and religious institutions in the spirit of the Communiques adopted by the IPU at the Parliamentary Conferences on Interfaith Dialogue in Marrakesh (2023) and Rome (2025). During the meeting, proposals for the success of this cooperation and prospects for joint actions at the local and regional levels to create the conditions that will allow a functional model of dialogue between parliamentarianism and religions were discussed.

During its stay in Geneva, the IAO leadership also held a meeting with senior officials of the World Council of Churches (WCC), with whom they discussed the prospect of further collaboration between the two institutions in areas of mutual interest, such as building peace in the long-suffering Middle East region through initiatives to strengthen interfaith dialogue and the promotion of Christian values in public debate and politics, especially in Europe, where there is a tendency to instrumentalize the religious factor for political goals. On the WCC side, the Director of the Life, Justice and Peace Program, Dr. Kenneth Mtata, the Advisor for Peacebuilding in Syria, Mr. Michel Nesir, and the Executive Director for the Interreligious Dialogue and Cooperation Program, Professor of Theology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Ms. Angeliki Ziaka participated.