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Interreligious dialogue

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Strategic Goals for Interreligious Dialogue

In the summer of 2022, the City of Zurich, the Roman Catholic Church and the Reformed Church joined forces to form the Working Group on Interreligious Dialogue in the Zurich Area. As the main funding partner of the Zurich Forum of Religions and the Zurich Institute for Interreligious Dialogue, the working group has defined strategic goals for interreligious dialogue. These underline the common intention to intensify the commitment to interreligious dialogue, to better coordinate it and to make it more visible

Reception of the Imams at the Town Hall on 14 March 2023

On March 14, 2023, the mayor Corine Mauch invited to the annual imam reception over lunch in the Stadthaus. City Councillor Karin Rykart welcomed the approximately 50 representatives of Muslim communities, the Association of Muslim Organisations Zurich (VIOZ), interreligious institutions and various people from the city administration. After the greetings of the Head of Integration Promotion Christof Meier, the VIOZ Vice President Megjide Zymberi and the Imam Sakib Halilovic, the guests addressed their questions and concerns to the representatives of the city. The event ended with a standing lunch and many conversations. 

 

"The City of Zurich is committed to ensuring that the cultural and religious traditions lived in the city can be visible and appreciated." Within the framework of this integration policy goal, the City of Zurich promotes interreligious dialogue.

In the city of Zurich, interreligious dialogue is shaped by the Zurich Forum of Religions and the Zurich Institute for Interreligious Dialogue (ZIID ). The organisational structure and the areas of activity of these two institutions can be seen in a brief portrait and activity profile .

Zurich Forum of Religions

The Zurich Forum of Religions (ZFR) is an association of religious communities from the five major religious traditions and government agencies in the Canton of Zurich. Initiated in 1997 by the City of Zurich, the ZFR has existed as an association since 2003. It provides religious communities with a presence and appreciation in everyday public life, imparts everyday knowledge about the religions lived in the Zurich area and enables encounters with the population. The central element of the ZFR's activities are the publicly accessible and usually free "on-site visits" to religious communities.

Zurich Institute for Interreligious Dialogue (ZIID)

Founded in 1993, the Zurich Institute for Interreligious Dialogue (ZIID) is a place where people from a wide variety of backgrounds engage with Jewish, Christian and Islamic culture, religion, history and the present and thus learn from and with each other. The ZIID offers a wide range of educational opportunities (lectures, workshops, excursions, discussion formats) on religious and socio-political topics for the public and institutions. 

In addition, the ZIID provides the city administration with a free advisory and educational offer: this offer is linked to the contribution made by the municipal council to the ZIID educational institution for the period 2020-2022 (GR no. 2019/356). The contractual relationship with the ZIID is supervised by the Integration Promotion.

Religious communities

The religious communities are part of civil society and important partner organisations. The City of Zurich is in regular contact with them in order to build mutual trust and to discuss concerns together and find solutions. Like Christian organizations, communities of other religions are characterized by a wide variety of forms.

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