MPs from Serbia, Albania, Jordan, Armenia, Russia, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria, Georgia and Moldova took part in the meeting hosted at the Georgian Parliament by Zakaria Kutsnashvil, MP and Chairman of the IAO Committee on Education.

The IAO leadership members, Aleksandar Cotric among them, were received by First Deputy Speaker of the Georgian Parliament Manana Kobakhidze who said that Georgia endorses the work of the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy because the organisation upholds tolerance, humanity and civilisational values and draws attention to the dangers of ideological, political and religious extremism.

At the joint meeting, Cotric, Chairman of the IAO Committee on Culture, and Poskurica, member of the IAO Committee on Education, emphasised the importance of affirming the values of the Orthodox educational and cultural identity and the achievements in these areas, pointing out their significance as a crucial part of overall social and economic development.

The Orthodox tradition, deeply seated into the very essence of the Serbian people, enables us to build good relations with all people of the same religion, as well as members of other religions and atheists. Serbia is a multiethnic and multiconfessional state greatly thanks to the moral and spiritual basis of Orthodoxy which has categorically stood against the suppression of people of other confessions – said the MPs of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia.

Aleksandar Cotric presented the work programme of the IAO Committee on Culture for 2015 and informed the participants of the joint meeting that the IAO and the editorial board of the ORTHPHOTO.net Internet portal had co-organised a photo competition on the “Destruction of monuments of the Christian East”.

The participants of the joint meeting of the IAO Committees were received by the Patriarch of Georgia Ilia II at the Patriarchate edifice in Tbilisi, who said he hoped all international, interreligious and territorial conflicts in the Caucasus and other parts of the world would be resolved peacefully. His Holiness Ilia II expressed the support of the Georgian Orthodox Church for the preservation of Serbia’s territorial integrity.