Chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Office (CMO), Sheikh ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazadeh, invited Pope Leo XIV to Azerbaijan in the Vatican.
According to the CMO, A. Pashazadeh made the invitation during a visit to the Vatican together with religious confessions in Azerbaijan.
A. Pashazadeh noted that the visit of the Pope to Azerbaijan in 2027, when the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and the Holy See and the 30th anniversary of the first meeting between National Leader Heydar Aliyev and Saint John Paul will be celebrated, will be particularly significant. In this regard, Sheikh ul-Islam A. Pashazadeh presented a letter of invitation to Pope Leo XIV on behalf of the Council of Religious Confessions of Azerbaijan.
Pope Leo XIV highly appreciated the joint arrival of religious confessions in Azerbaijan to the Vatican as the best example of the possibility of coexistence in an environment of peace and human brotherhood.
The chairman of the CMO stated that mutual state visits, productive and effective meetings with state officials and representatives of the multicultural religious community make a great contribution to the development of relations between Azerbaijan and the Vatican:
“It is commendable that the development of interstate relations between the Holy See and Azerbaijan promotes the deepening of our inter-religious relations. The decades-long fruitful religious and spiritual relations between religious centers – the Vatican and the CMO, based on the commandments of the Almighty, are an exemplary example of contributing to the inter-religious dialogue process on a global scale.”
The chairman of the CMO emphasized that it is regrettable that the Armenian Church does not recognize this process and does not support the peace that pleases the Almighty at a time when the political leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are making great and continuous efforts for peace in the region. Sheikh ul-Islam noted that the information spread by the Armenian Church, which acts from a revanchist position, about the destruction of religious monuments is not true, and that the Armenian Church exists in the central part of Baku, and emphasized that the Pontiff will be able to directly observe these realities during his visit to Azerbaijan.
A. Pashazadeh expressed his satisfaction with the level of relations between the Vatican and the Caucasus Muslims Office in the field of inter-religious cooperation, and emphasized the importance of further deepening these relations, and emphasized that the establishment of a representative office of the CMO in the Vatican could make a great contribution to this process.
Speaking at the meeting, Bishop Vladimir Fekete, Ordinary of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Roman Catholic Church in Azerbaijan, spoke about the high level of inter-religious relations in the country during his 17 years of activity in Azerbaijan.