As in Antwerp, on Tuesday 9 September representatives of the different religions and personalities of the Cuban culture and politics gathered in Havana for the first Cuban edition of "Peace is the future: religions and cultures in dialogue 100 years after World War I".After 28 years, the international meeting of prayer for peace, born in 1986 on the initiative of holy pope John Paul II and organised annually since 1987 by the Community of Sant'Egidio, thus reached the Caribbean island for the first time.
At the end of a conference on the theme of peace and dialogue, the Christian representatives: Catholic, Protestant and evangelical, the leaders of the Islamic League of Cuba and the members of the Jewish and Buddhist communities prayed for peace in different places according to their own religious tradition, to later join together in a march to Plaza de Belén, at La Habana Vieja, for the closing ceremony, which was also attended by Cuban authorities and members of the diplomatic corps present on the island.
Speeches and testimonies accompanied the various gestures of peace, such as the lighting of a candelabra, lights of hope for a future of peace, the release of the doves and the delivery, by children and young people, of a peace appeal to the political and religious representatives.
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