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URD students and professors with Bossey students and WCC staff.

URD students and professors with Bossey students and WCC staff.

Relations between the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Centre for Interreligious Dialogue in Tehran go back more than 20 years. One recent fruit of this relationship has been the developing links between the WCC and the University of Religions and Denominations (URD) in the Iranian holy city of Qom. The URD, founded about 20 years ago, focuses on teaching students about non-Muslim religions, including Christianity, and non-Shia forms of Islam. Over the last four years the URD has been cooperating with the WCC, including sending some of its students to participate in the Bossey Summer Interreligious Course.

Facilitated by the WCC’s programme for interreligious dialogue and cooperation, a small group of professors and graduate students from the URD visited the WCC and Bossey on 10-13 October to explore possibilities for further collaboration.  The group was led by Dr Mahdi Salehi, the university’s lead for international relations. A highlight of their visit was meeting some of the current students studying at Bossey. Salehi and his colleagues shared information about a short course that the URD organises for non-Iranians each year – with encouragement to the students and others to apply to  join it.

Strengthening interreligious trust and respect