Round Table: Inter-religious relations and collaboration in Albania. History and Modern Perspectives

On the occasion of the 10th Anniversary of World Interfaith Harmony Week, the Department of Theology & Culture of University College Logos will organized a round table on 3rd March (5 pm) with the title “Inter-religious relations and collaboration in Albania. History and Modern Perspectives”. The event took place in the central campus of University College Logos with the collaboration of the Department of Islamic Studies of University College Beder, the Catholic Seminar of Shkodra and the Evangelical Brotherhood of Albania. The main discussion was how this religious tolerance and coexistence has worked in Albania and which are the common ethical points that unites the religious communities as a base of their collaboration and coexistence today and in the future. After a short introduction by the Head of the Department of Theology & Culture (University College Logos), Dr. Georgios Gaitanos, about the model of religious tolerance in Albania and the goals and objectives of World Interfaith Harmony Week, participants from University College Logos (Msc. Dhimit?r Qosja), University College Bedër (PhD. Cand. Hysni Skura), Intercultural Seminar Mother of Good Council (Dom Lorenzo Rossetti) and Institute of Albanian and Protestant Studies (Dr. John Quanrud) took the floor and presented their topics. The main consensus after the presentations and the discussion with students and colleagues that participated on the round table was that the presence and coexistence of the world’s two largest monotheist religions, Islam and Christianity, among Albanian people, have made inter-religious tolerance and understanding a historical necessity, thus serving as a tool and a factor which have ensured its existence and unity as an entire nation, endowing it with an age-long and inalienable value of not only peaceful inter-religious but also interethnical and inter-cultural coexistence, which is the most precious value that many countries are in desperate need and search of. After the end of the round table our students received a certificate of participation and the discussion continued over a buffet.