دير مار موسى الحبشي Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi

Dear Friends,

 In the light of the Resurrection, the announce of peace from our Lord, His breath of reconciliation, in his body, the Lamb always slaughtered, and in the fertile wound of his heart, as we kiss his tortured hands and feet, we come to you to assure you that by the grace of God we stay strong in faith, comforted by hope and passionate with love during this tragic period of deep fermentation in our Arabic homeland and in this Muslim world which is our great concern in the name of the Church.

My comments presented here are based upon the reflections given by the Monastic Community of Deir Mar Musa el-Habashi in Syria to the Lineamentaprepared for Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, which I consider still to be important, even after publication of theInstrumentum Laboris, I present them here, together with the text I wrote on the basis of my impressions of the latter, after our discussions in London. I would wish to stress here that the Lineamenta and the Instrumentum Laboris are both full of interesting insights. However, our role here is not simply to reiterate them, but rather to state what we think is either missing or insufficiently emphasised. Our approach is always intended to be constructive, even when critiquing the documents.

Dear Ivo,

At long last, the book is a reality… thanks to you and thanks to Francesca and Mario Peliti!

Alliance of Civilizations High-Level Symposium, Auckland 24^th of May 2007

Paolo Dall’Oglio

Considering the fact that the members of this High Level Group are outstanding and known representatives of academic and political worlds, I had to address a question to myself: What can it mean, this invitation to the leader of a very local experience in Syria, the leader of something still not 'fixed' either ecclesiastically or socially, committed nonetheless to Christian/Islamic harmony building, in the desert mountains of Syria, to the mission of the Alliance of Civilizations?