St. Petersburg summit highlights religious values, cultural cooperation

The conference sought to provide a platform for interfaith and inter-civilizational dialogue and to explore ways of preserving religious, spiritual, moral and family values in the contemporary world.

The event was attended by prominent figures from Iran, Russia and the Muslim world, as well as senior Russian officials, including St. Petersburg Governor Alexander Beglov, Yevgeny Yermin, head of the Department for Interaction with Religious Organizations at the Russian Presidential Administration, St. Petersburg Grand Mufti Ravil Pancheyev, and Albir Krganov, head of the Muslim Religious Assembly of Russia. Religious leaders and representatives from Lebanon, Belarus, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia also attended.

An Iranian delegation comprising Kazem Jalali, Iran’s ambassador to Russia; Hujjat-ul-Islam Hamid Shahriari, the Secretary General of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought; and Abdolreza Rashed, cultural counselor at Iran’s embassy, took an active part in the summit and outlined Iran’s strategic positions.

Jalali warned about what he described as efforts by global hegemonic powers and international Zionism to weaken religious and traditional values among younger generations. He said modern media and emerging technologies were being used to target the family, morality, justice and religious traditions.

The Iranian ambassador drew a connection between authentic religious teachings and the historical resistance of nations, describing St. Petersburg and the Islamic Republic of Iran as two prominent symbols of resistance to hegemonic ambitions.

He stressed that strengthening strategic ties between Tehran and Moscow was vital to countering unilateralism and the global system of domination, while emphasizing the need for intellectuals and religious scholars to remain vigilant and maintain close ties with society to counter cultural threats.

On the sidelines of the summit, Iranian and Russian officials held bilateral meetings on expanding strategic cooperation.

During a meeting between Jalali and Yermin, the two sides stressed the need to fully operationalize religious and academic cooperation. Yermin praised Iran’s resistance to what he described as the system of domination, calling it a valuable model and expressing Moscow’s readiness to expand strategic cultural, academic and religious cooperation with Tehran.

In a meeting between Jalali and Pancheyev, the two sides stressed the need for continued dialogue among religious scholars to address young people’s questions and doubts in the age of artificial intelligence and social media.

Pancheyev welcomed the high-level Iranian participation and called for greater cooperation among religious scholars to confront what he described as cultural attacks on young people’s religious values.

Hujjat-ul-Islam Shahriari, for his part, stressed the need for the two sides to play a more active role internationally in protecting traditional values.

The challenges facing younger generations in the digital and artificial-intelligence era were also discussed during the summit.

Shahriari also stressed the importance of self-development, spiritual refinement and keeping religious scholarship up to date. During the summit, he formally invited the Grand Mufti of St. Petersburg to join the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought, an invitation that was warmly accepted.

Meanwhile, Abdolreza Rashed, the newly appointed cultural counselor at Iran’s embassy in Moscow, was officially introduced as the representative of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought in the Russian Federation, marking what officials described as a new chapter in scholarly and religious exchanges between the two countries.