February 13, 2007

A delegation of 13 U.S. religious leaders, including Maureen Shea, director of the Episcopal Church's Office of Government Relations, will visit Iran February 17-25 to deepen dialogue between religious and political leaders there in the hope of defusing tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

The group is scheduled to meet with former President Mohammad Khatami and current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to a new release from the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) one of the trip's two organizers.

The group's schedule also includes meetings with religious leaders in Tehran, Qom and Isfahan, including Iranian Evangelical Protestant leaders, the Archbishop of the Armenian Orthodox Church in Iran, and Muslim religious leaders in the city of Qom. Qom is considered a holy city in Shi'ite Islam. . The U.S. delegation consists of leaders from the Mennonite, Quaker, Episcopal, Catholic and United Methodist denominations, as well as the National Council of Churches, Pax Christi and Sojourners/Call to Renewal in Washington, D.C. The trip comes after 35 religious leaders met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad during his September 2006 visit to New York.

"Our primary goal is to engage in dialogue with a variety of Iranians," said Ron Flaming, MCC international program director.

The trip is being organized by MCC and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).

"We are making this trip hoping it will encourage both governments to step back from a course that will lead to conflict and suffering," said Mary Ellen McNish, general secretary of the AFSC.

As the rhetoric of war appears to be intensifying on the part of both governments and with neither speaking directly to one another about peace, the group is hoping their visit will make a positive contribution toward ensuring peace between Iran and the United States, the MCC news release said.

"At the same time there is great risk that our goal to encourage improved relations between the people of Iran and the U.S. will be overshadowed by the controversy surrounding President Ahmadinejad," Flaming said.

Ahmadinejad has been the target of international criticism for his controversial statements denying the Holocaust and a recent conference in Tehran supporting that view as well as his condemnation of the state of Israel. The Episcopal Church's 25th Presiding Bishop, Frank Griswold, issued two statements criticizing Ahmadinejad's views. [Statements are available here and here.]

Admadinejad also has an ongoing dispute with the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"As we did at the meeting in New York, we intend to continue to engage the president on his statements regarding the Holocaust," McNish said. "The Holocaust is a historical fact and one of history's greatest human tragedies."

"These statements make it difficult for Americans to believe that a constructive dialogue is possible," she added.

When several members of the delegation met with members of Congress in October 2006 after the New York meeting with Ahmadinejad in September, they were encouraged to continue their efforts and visit Iran if possible. After the upcoming visit, the group will again meet with members of the U.S. Congress to tell them about what they heard leaders in Iran saying and about ways to move toward lessening current tensions.

"It is hoped that this visit will help foster reconciliation and diplomacy between our countries," Shea said in summarizing the trip. "At a time of heightened political tensions, we pray that new doors will be opened that will lead us to peaceful resolution of our differences, not conflict."

In September former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami spoke at Washington National Cathedral. At his invitation and that of the Iranian Organization of Culture and Islamic Relations, Diocese of Washington Bishop John Bryson Chane; Bishop Pierre Whalon of the Episcopal Church's Convocation of American Churches in Europe; Canon John L. Peterson, director the Cathedral College's Center for Global Justice and Reconciliation; and Evan Anderson, the center's deputy director, visited Tehran in December. The trip was also in response to an earlier invitation to Whalon from the Chaldean Archbishop of Iran, Ramzi Garmou.

Episcopal News Service