Invitation to a Historic Pilgrimage – Jerusalem Declaration’s 10th Anniversary – UPF’s Middle East Peace Initiative

Universal Peace Federation

www.uk.upf.org    www.upf.org

An invitation to a Historic Pilgrimage marking the

10th Anniversary of the Jerusalem Declaration.

Dear Friend,

A diverse group from all over the world, who consider themselves friends of both Israel and Palestine, and who are deeply concerned about the ongoing search to bring lasting peace between the two, will meet in Jerusalem on May 14-19, 2013, to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Middle East Peace Initiative (MEPI), launched by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who also founded the Universal Peace Federation (UPF).

MEPI was established in 2003 as a global movement to help bring lasting peace in the region. The search for interreligious harmony, especially between the three Abrahamic Faiths, has always been at the heart of this quest. Thus, MEPI participants, of whom there have been over 14,000 to date, tend to see themselves to some extent as interfaith pilgrims who rally in the Holy Land to further the cause of reconciliation between moderates on either side of the political, religious, ethnic and other divides that lie at the heart of the conflict there. Participants include religious leaders from all faiths, scholars, politicians, government officials, as well as people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

On April 24, 2013, Dr. Chang Shik Yang, International Vice Chair of UPF, announced that the 10th Anniversary of the Jerusalem Declaration Memorial Programme,

” provides the opportunity for each of our Ambassadors for Peace, WFWP prominent women, Clergy and FFWPU members from all generations to “experience” the vision of unity and reconciliation in Jerusalem. Together we will retrace the historic footsteps of Jesus, understand the heart and faith of Islam and gain deep understanding of the Jewish foundation upon which all Abrahamic faiths trace a common beginning in one God. We will remember Father Moon’s unchanging love for all faiths and his vision that the faith leaders, when united, have the key to ending the conflicts in the world.”

You are most warmly invited to participate in this historic 2013 pilgrimage. Those who plan to do so will be required to pay their own airfares and a registration fee of 700 Euros to cover a specially discounted package that has been arranged for UPF’s specific requirements and which will take in six days and five nights in the area (including lodging, meals, organized tours and conference fees – see the tentative schedule copied below). Please inform us immediately of your interest to participate by notifying your local UPF representative, who will contact us at the above email address. An online registration process is available at – “online form“

We are looking forward to welcoming you to what promises to be a very meaningful 10th Anniversary event.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Brann

Secretary General UPF Europe

Tentative Schedule May 14-19, 2013

Tuesday, May 14 – Arrive in Tel Aviv and travel via bus or Sheirut taxi to the Dan Jerusalem Hotel at Mt. Scopus. Opening dinner at the hotel.

Wednesday, May 15 through Friday, May 17 – Conference and tours, including Yad Vashem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Ramallah and Jericho.

Saturday, May 18 – 10th Anniversary of the Jerusalem Declaration with a peace walk through the old city and visits to holy sites, including the Western Wall, Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Via Dolorosa. Commemorative banquet in the evening to celebrate the MEPI interfaith peace movement.

Sunday, May 19 – Departures.

The History of the May 2003 Jerusalem Declaration

The Middle East Peace Initiative, a key strategic project of UPF, was launched in 2003 as a Track 2 diplomacy effort to bring a wide range of religious perspectives into the search for peace.

Shelly Elkayam, poetess and researcher at Göttingen University and Hebrew University in Jerusalem, credits the MEPI pilgrimages with changing the hearts and minds of many in the region over a two-year period. She argues in her paper, “A Religious Model in Action: Sun Myung Moon and the Middle East Peace Initiative, 2003 to 2005″ that “these MEPI pilgrimages were an educational tool designed by a religious actor as a global model of peace building [and] represented a new model of interfaith activism carried out in a ferocious war zone and was meant to bring the faiths together and serve the cause of world peace.”

MEPI participants visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, other Jewish sites and were one of the first non-Muslim organizations to be invited to the Al-Aqsa Mosque on The Holy Mount, which had been closed to non-Muslims since the Second Intifada. Then there was a reconciliation ceremony held together with Rabbis, Imams and Pastors where the Jerusalem Declaration was signed on May 18th 2003, “With that declaration, each major group acknowledged its historical mistakes and repented for them and agreed to work together to realize peace and harmony,” (Rev. Philip Schanker).

Robin Marsh

Secretary General

Universal Peace Federation (UPF) – UK

Mobile: 07956210768   Office: 02072620985

pa@uk.upf.org      www.uk.upf.org

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Pilgrimage – Interfaith Perspectives

‘Pilgrimage’

Period of Silence to Begin: Angad Kaur, Brother Tashi, Swami Saradananda, Joy Phillipou, Amarjeet-singh Bhamra, Imam Mahmadou Bocoum

What can we learn about pilgrimages that are common to all religions? On September 3rd we heard about jumping queues and ‘culturally determined’ mind sets that are challenged when we join a pilgrimage. Swami Saradananda, who coordinates pilgrimages (www.flyingmountainyoga.org), talked of India as a place where Europeans or Americans had to relearn everything from how to eat, talk, sleep and go to the toilet. The happiest pilgrimage was often the one where everything went wrong! Imam Mahmadou Bocoum spoke of wearing the white clothes of the Haj and putting away things of the world. Yet he struggled when others jumped queues, pushed and shoved to fulfil their heavenly duties. Brother Tashi spoke of accumulating merit by pilgrimages as well as purifying our karma. He demonstrated the sequence of devotion when approaching the holy mountain in Tibet near Llhasa: the sequential prostration every two metres along the path.

Angad Kaur talked of two pilgrimages. The first was similar to sightseeing. The second with a spiritual guide and mentor was an external manifestation of an enriching internal journey. She could experience the devotion suffused within the stones and creation where it was practiced by holy people of the past.

Joy Phillipou grew up in the Holy Land of the Levant, providing ample time to experience swimming in Lake Galilee while thinking of Christ walking on that lake or the joy of being given turkish coffee and sanctified bread at 4:00 am by monks after sleeping overnight in the Church of Holy Sepulchre or lying down in the Garden of the Tomb in the place where Christ’s body may have been laid to rest. She felt a sacred presence within the stations of the cross on Via Doloroso holding her arms out like Christ in crucifixion.

A Unificationist, Ashley Crosthwaite, saw life of faith as a journey. The pilgrimage is a small aspect of that journey. On a pilgrimage to a holy place in Korea he and his wife, who were having difficulty to have children, were told by a spiritual lady of that place to fast one day a week and have cold showers each day for three years. At the conclusion of those three years they had their first child.

Swami Saradananda quoted Mother Theresa’s conception of a castle with seven rooms in our inner world. Each room is guarded by those who check whether you have really learned all there is to learn from that room before passing to the next. Real peace must come from within she said as we change our own inner nature. A pilgrimage brings out the real inner nature in a way that allows us to deal with what we can easily hide in our own nation and regular life.

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