World Interfaith Harmony Week: In Search of God
For the past fifteen years UPF Slovakia has supported World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW), and this year chose the title In Search of God, inspired by the first chapter of World Scripture II.
Faith groups especially showed great interest in the topic, and the event, held in our Peace Embassy, attracted an audience of fifty.
We invited our guests to reflect on where to search for the Creator; every religion offers different answers and tools, and the faith leaders gave answers according to their scriptures and personal experiences.
In his welcoming address, Miloš Klas, president of UPF Slovakia outlined the increasing pressure from especially the media, on religions and believers in the public sector.
The many and varied names for ‘God’- Universal Prime Force, Heavenly Parents, Supreme Being, Ultimate Reality, The Creator, Cosmic Mind, Great Spirit, Anima Mundi, Highest Self, Yahweh, Allah and om (aum) – were displayed in a colourful slide show, followed by a video and a translation of the Lord´s Prayer from Aramaic, which is very different from the known version. This touched many hearts and was a highlight of the evening.
Rev. Miroslav Rybár from the Family Federation reported that an American pastor who visited Korea was deeply impressed, by reading the words of the late Rev Moon. From this experience, he realised that Rev Moon had had a natural and intense relationship with God.
A Ukrainian priest, Ihor Marusyn, then talked about our relationship to God as taught by Jesus and Katarína Mikitová from the AllatRa movement showed excerpts of a video entitled Scientific proof of the Existence of God.
Elena Selecká from the Sri Chinmoy Center explained how she experiences God´s presence in daily life and Raghunatha Pryia das from Hare Krisha gave an inspiring talk about God’s embracing love for every being.
To lighten up the program, we invited our guests to clap and sing along to the video Every Praise composed by Hezekiah Walker.
Then Dušan Uhrín, a Baptist preacher, spoke about the road from doubt to faith. Pavel Mudra and Olga Zadnančinová showed the video Respect the Religion of Others and explained how Scientology defines God.
Our final speaker, pastor Arnold Tupan from the Pentecost community praised the interreligious work of the Universal Peace Federation.
To end the two-hour program, we showed the famous video One Day - Matisyahu from an interfaith concert in Haifa.
Then followed relaxed chats over refreshments and many guests expressed their appreciation of the program.