A Saudi Mosque in Moscow in Exchange for a Russian Church in Mecca ?

ICC Note

“If Muslims consider it correct to have a large and beautiful mosque in Rome , then it is equally correct for Christians to have a church in Riyadh .”

By Paul Goble

11/26/2008 Saudi Arabia (Georgian Daily)– The king of Saudi Arabia has announced that he is ready to support the construction of a mosque and Islamic cultural center in Moscow , a city with only four mosques for its more than two million Muslims. In response and probably to block this, Orthodox Christians in Russia have called for opening a church in Saudi Arabia .

These two proposals have sparked an often intriguing discussion by Russia’s Muslims and Christians over the role religion plays in defining the two societies and about the role of law in regulating that, a discussion that could either enrich or complicate the Kremlin’s relations with Muslims inside Russia and Muslim states abroad it is currently trying to court.

Given that Moscow has only four mosques – the same number it had at the end of Soviet times – but a Muslim population that may number as many as 2.5 million, Muslims in the Russian Federation were delighted by the offer and the attention from abroad it suggests. But many non-Muslim Russians were horrified that another mosque might be opened in their capital.

Their appeal noted that “ Saudi Arabia is building mosques in dozens of Christian countries” and then asked whether it would not be only just if permission were given to Christians to build a church within its borders for Christians living there, something Riyadh has been reluctant to permit.

And in support of their argument, the three groups cite the comment of Jean-Louis Cardinal Toran, the head of the Papal Council on Inter-religious Dialogue that “if Muslims consider it correct to have a large and beautiful mosque in Rome , then it is equally correct for Christians to have a church in Riyadh .”

The Orthodox groups also argued that it would be “very important” to lift the restrictions now in force against Christians visiting the Holy cities of Mecca and Medina,” to all visitors to Saudi Arabia to wear crosses, and to create special courses about Christianity in general and Russian Orthodoxy in particular.