CATHEDRAL AM, MAY 2013

Canon Barry Naylor (left) & Riaz Ravat

It's a very short walk between BBC Radio Leicester and Leicester Cathedral, so hardly five minutes after my appearance on Jonathan Lampon's breakfast show, I'm sitting down to a breakfast of my own at Cathedral AM. Half a dozen attendees are seated already when I arrive. At least two of them tell me that they just heard me on the radio!

When I used to live this side of town I came to Cathedral AM often, but this is the first time I've made it in 18 months (literally; the last one was 30 November 2011).

Cathedral AM is an early morning networking event for people with particular interest in the city centre. From the start, the meetings have been hosted by Canon Barry Naylor and Julie Ann Heath. Breakfast is served from 0730 then there's a speaker from 0800. This morning it's Riaz Ravat, Deputy Director at St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society.

Just before leaving, I have a brief word with Jo Tallack, General Manager at Highcross. She asks me if we'll be coming back for our exhibition during Inter Faith Week in November. When I say yes, she asks me to send her the dates so she can put it in the diary.

MEET IAIN STEWART, GENERAL SECRETARY, EDINBURGH INTERFAITH ASSOCIATION

A lunchtime meeting in Brucciani's, Church Gate, with Iain Stewart, General Secretary of Edinburgh Interfaith Association. Iain is taking the MA in Inter Religious Relations at St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society and is down here for one of the course sessions tomorrow.

Iain and I met for the first time almost exactly a year ago at an  second Open Meeting sponsored by Leicester Council of Faiths. The topic was "God in My Faith" and the meeting was held in in the Parish Hall of Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Mere Road, Highfields. At that time, Iain was in his previous post as Interfaith Worker for the Church of Scotland. On that occasion we had barely enough time to introduce ourselves one to the other and promise to make time to meet again later. So here we are!

We know many of the same people and places that feature strongly in the inter faith work in Scotland - although my experience there is mostly historical. It's good to hear about the current scene in my home country - and home town of Glasgow in particular.

At the end of our hour or so together, I take Iain into Highcross, to show him the site of our annual Inter Faith Week exhibition and the Faith Room nearby. I can tell he's impressed - I hoped he would be! 

PEACE VISIT 2012

Today Leicester Council of Faiths is holding our annual Peace Visit. This is one of what might be called our "signature" events for the benefit of the general public in Leicester (the others being our exhibition in Highcross during Inter Faith Week at the end of November and Holocaust Memorial Day in January).

There are twelve of us when we set off by minibus from Town Hall Square (after a brief welcome from Cllr Manjula Sood, Chair of Leicester Council of Faiths). The size of the group varies at each stop; at its height later in the day, there are 13 of us. It's a pleasant, sunny and warm day and we have a nice mix of old hands and new faces among us today.

Stage 1: Jain Centre

Our first stop is the Jain Centre on Oxford Street. The itinerary for the Peace Visit has changed each year (as has the name of the event, which has occasionally gone under different titles). The Jain Centre, however, has been a constant: and no wonder - it's surely the most distinctive among Leicester's many places of worship. I've visited it at least a dozen times and each time I do, something new has been done to the place. There's a nice panel display in a long corridor that's recently been opened up, conveying the history, beliefs, principles and practices of Jainism.

Stage 2: BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir

This temple has been open to public worship for less than a year, but has already become a major attraction, not only for worshippers but also for tourists. We're shown around by Narendra Waghela, who is one of two representatives of the local Swaminarayan community on Leicester Council of Faiths. He explains a few of the technical secrets behind making the whole site function to award-winning standards. It really is a beautiful place, with something to delight all the senses as well as elevate the soul.

Stage 3: All Saints' Church, Kerrysdale Avenue

We emerge from Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, get into our minibus and cross the road to our next stop. The Church of All Saints serves Leicester's Asian Christian congregation. Originally St Gabriel's (the statue of the Archangel has been retained above the entrance, as you can see top right in the photo above), the church was closed due to falling number of Anglican worshippers and remained unused for two years until it was resurrected in June 2012 for this diverse community. I haven't been to this church today (in either of its forms). We're given a warm welcome (in what is a surprisingly cold building) by the Pastor, Sunny George, and a handful of the congregation.

Stage 4: Guru Ravi Dass Sikh Temple, Harrison Road

Final stop on our short tour is another place I haven't visited before. This temple is named for Guru Ravi Dass, a revered historical figure among Sikhs and Hindus, previously unknown to me. Guru Nanak is reported to have met him and some of his verses are included in the Sikh holy book, the Guru Granth Sahib. Today's been quite an education for me - as are most days in this job!

I reckon that, if we had the resources, we could fill a minibus on this kind of tour once a month. There's certainly variety among the places of worship that we could visit plenty of them with dreary repetition. With adequate promotion, we could surely get a dozen people on board, once a month. Ajay, who is Co-ordinator at Leicester Council of Faiths, organises our annual Peace Visit. I wonder how he'd feel about that ...

WORLD INTERFAITH HARMONY WEEK

The first week of February of each year has been designated World Interfaith Harmony Week by the United Nations. First proposed in 2010 by HM King Abdullah of Jordan, this new event aims to promote harmony among all people regardless of their faith.

World Interfaith Harmony Week seeks to spread the message of tolerance among the followers of all the world's religions, faiths, and beliefs. It does this by promoting the common basis of "Love of God and Love of the Neighbour, or Love of the Good and Love of the Neighbour." Its message invites everyone, excludes no one, and is purely voluntary. The objectives behind the World Interfaith Harmony Week, in the words of the author of the resolution, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad, are:

1. To co-ordinate and unite the efforts of all the interfaith groups doing positive work with one focused theme at one specific time annually, thereby increasing their collective momentum and eliminating redundancy.
2. To harness and utilize the collective might of the world’s second-largest infrastructure (that of places of worship — the largest being that of education) specifically for peace and harmony in the world: inserting, as it were, the right "software" into the world’s religious "hardware." 
3. To permanently and regularly encourage the silent majority of preachers to declare themselves for peace and harmony and providing a ready-made vehicle for them to do so. Moreover, if preachers and teachers commit themselves on the record once a year to peace and harmony, this means that when the next inter-religious crisis or provocation occurs, they cannot then relapse into parochial fear and mistrust, and will be more likely to resist the winds of popular demagoguery.

World Interfaith Harmony Week is not widely acknowledged or celebrated in this country, since we have our own national Inter Faith Week, established by the Inter Faith Network UK at the end of November (as if I have to tell you that, faithful reader). And from my personal point of view, I really need another week like that, so soon after the draining efforts I put into that!

However: there are a number of activities and events taking place in the UK during this week, which can be found on the events calendar of Interfaith Harmony Week's website. Events in the UK, according to this calendar, are limited to some pretty high-level affaris in Birmingham, Cambridge, London and Woking. There doesn't seem much in the way of grass roots community support of the kind that characterises our own Inter Faith Week. I don't think that two people turning out on a cold Sunday evening in November to watch Keanau Reeves in Little Buddha at Phoenix Square in our Faiths Film Festival would cause much of a blip on World Interfaith Harmony Week's radar!

A variety of resources of interest and use to individuals and groups involved in inter-faith work are available through the World Interfaith Harmony Week website.

Just because we're not doing it here doesn't mean I'm going to ignore it. I'll be following it in the virtual sense at least and posting daily reminders about it here. You can follow it on your own through Facebook or by dipping into the news page on the World Interfaith Harmony Week website.