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Marseille Espérance
Hôtel de Ville 13233 Marseille cedex20 France
RELIGIONS Judaism, Catholic, Protestant, Islam, Orthodox, Buddhism
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELIGIOUS SITE
DESCRIPTION Created in 1990, it is an institution which gathers the main religions in order to prevent intercommunity confrontations. It is composed both with civil society representatives and religious leaders (Armenian church, Buddhist, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Orthodox, Protestant). They regularly meet to think and share their experiences and to work for the well-being of each community and the “living together” in Marseille
HISTORICAL RELEVANCE Considering the city of Marseille has always been a city which attracted many migrants from all over the world, becoming more and more multicultural, Marseille Espérance is working from almost thirty years to maintain a good dialogue between all the different communities, and its work is particularly relevant in a period when anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are common in all Europe but particularly in countries like France.
INTER-RELIGIOUS RELEVANCE The main activity of Marseille Espérance is to propose joint actions to gather, create links and bring together the people of Marseille from different cultures and religions without discrimination on the base of religion or politics.
The institution fundamentals are: respect for everyone, dialogue and friendship. All decisions are taken unanimously.
Several projects have emerged from the work of Marseille Espérance and the main activities could be resumed as:
realization of an intercommunity calendar, organization of a large annual festive event, cycles of conferences or cinema, symbolic events, various interventions, participation in the International Documentary Festival.
RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE In this case, even if the institution is settled in France, which is a country with a majority of Catholics, there is no particular religion that could be considered the leading one in Marseille Espérance, because the organization itself was born to create a common field to all the different religious communities in the city and its extreme variet. In fact, not only the three main monotheistic religions of Islam, Judaism and Christianity are involved (considering all its sects as Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, Armenian Church, Protestants etc), but also really small minorities such as Hindus and Buddhists.
The interesting fact of this institution is the total cooperation between all these faiths without the need for anyone to overcome the others.
HOW TO USE WITH THE STUDENTS Students would be involve in the several activities carried out by the institution like participating in conferences and cinema events (one of the most interesting could be the International Documentary Festival).
Also students could be involved in intercommunity religious holidays that are celebrated with the participation of people of different religions to emphasize the sense of sharing of what the institution is the representative.
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