Washington National Cathedral

On behalf of the Washington National Cathedral it’s my privilege to welcome you this evening to this historic event as we receive the fifth President of Iran, Mohammed Khatami, to this House of Prayer for all People. Muslims, Jews and Christians from this city and from around our nation have come together to hear from one who has been called the first reformist President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. We are pleased to welcome you, Mr. President, because of your commitment to dialogue among civilizations and cultures. We hope by your presence here tonight that a new conversation will be opened between our two nations and among the Abrahamic faiths. Even if a dialogue is not possible at this moment, between our nations certainly it is our hope that there will be more understanding between our faith communities.

We’re hosting this event this evening at the National Cathedral as part of this Cathedral’s ministry of reconciliation. This ministry requires us to engage in conversation with nations, faiths and individuals with whom we may have significant disagreements. It requires us to give a respectful hearing to people whose words, and maybe actions, sometimes disturb and trouble us. For us as Christians, Jesus modeled this behavior eating with the hated tax collectors, healing the servant of a despised centurion in the Roman occupying army. His words continue to challenge us. “You have heard that it was said and you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 5:43–45) In our own time Pope John Paul, II who met in 1999 with our guest this evening, understood that if the church is to facilitate healing and transformation, it cannot live on the margins of controversy uttering hopeful pieties. Rather it must immerse itself in the struggles that convulse the human family. Reconciliation requires us to seek partners to take risks to hear what these potential partners say and to examine what they do. And requires us to submit ourselves to the same searching scrutiny. Your Excellency, you come to the National Cathedral as one who is open to dialogue with Americans on the role of religion in peace. It’s important that we who have our common heritage in Abraham use our great traditions to come together in understanding, instead of using our weaknesses to divide. We must recognize the painful histories we both carry. We Christians recognize the destruction that we inflicted on the Muslim world during the Crusades. You, yourself, were one of the first leaders in the Middle East to recognize the terrible events of 9/11 and their impact on our country.

Because of your commitment to reconciliation, you have been honored by the Secretary General of the United Nations, along with the Prime Ministers of Spain and Turkey, to be a part of the High-Level Group of the United Nations’ Alliance of Civilizations, a meeting which you attended these last two days in New York. You have written eloquently about your understanding of “dialogue among civilizations”.

You have written that such a dialogue “among civilizations is not a dialogue in and of itself, but a way of attaining empathy and compassion.” An important part of any dialogue and exchange is speaking and listening. Tonight you will be speaking and we will be listening. As a result of what is happening here we are hopeful that a dialogue among us will begin so that we, as people of faith, will come to a greater understanding of each other and therefore a greater understanding of truth. May tonight be the first step in a process that will be, as you have said, “a better way to work through and eliminate the problems and challenges [we face], rather than [living with] threats and violence.” We believe it is important for us to have this dialogue with you. I’d like to close with one other passage reminding us in your writings of the urgency of our work tonight as you wrote: “The 20th century much to our collective chagrin was perhaps the worst period in all human history in terms of war, blood shed, oppression and exploitation. Overcoming the agony and horrors of the past century can be achieved only through substantive change in the fundamentals of political thinking, and through effective replacement of the prevailing paradigm in international relations with that of dialogue among civilizations and cultures. And so we gather for dialogue. Following President’s Khatami’s address, we will welcome the Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington to offer some concluding remarks.

Your Excellency, we welcome you to the Washington National Cathedral.

My friends, I present to you, His Excellency, the Fifth President of Iran, and Seyed Mohammed Khatami.