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Islam and Christianity meet in Russia

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Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage museum of culture in St Petersburg.

Islam and Christianity in Russia are too intertwined through shared history and culture for there not to be better understanding between them, according to Mikhail Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage museum of culture in St Petersburg.

In delivering the Jacques de Larosière lecture at the end of EBRD’s 16th Annual Meeting today in the Russian city of Kazan, the world-renowned Islamic scholar said that Christians and Muslims indulge in stereotypes of each other. “They’re not so much stereotypes as crooked and broken mirrors…The picture of reality is not consistent with reality.”

Professor Piotrovsky focused on the need for cultural dialogue between the faiths in Russia to mark the fact that the Bank’s Annual Meeting was being held in the Republic of Tatarstan where the majority faith is Islam. In centuries past, Muslims dominated much of what is now Russia, until the Russ were able to dislodge them and form an empire in which the Christian Orthodox church dominated. The two religions have a shared history of sometimes repressing each other, some times encouraging each other, he said.

To illustrate how close the two faiths have been in Russia, and how each culture continues to inform the other, he showed a number of photos – exteriors and interiors of churches, mosques and other buildings.

The first image was of the Peter and Paul cathedral in St Petersburg, “where all the tsars were buried”, which sits adjacent to a mosque. “Until World War One this was the only city with an orthodox church and a mosque so close together.”

He also showed how Russian Christian princes signed letters to Muslim leaders: in Turkic script. Many Christian Russ leaders honoured their central Asian roots by decorating the interiors of their homes in Islamic style.

“We’ve had mutual interaction for centuries…There must be a dialogue between people who understand that they can have different values -- although if we changed our world view we might find they are in fact common values – to teach us to live together and blossom together.”

All the same, he said secularism was the way forward for Russia.

The transcript of this lecture will be published on line in the coming days.

By Kate Dunn, Senior Communications Adviser
21 May 2007