Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - While celebrating Christmas in the world has its own human meanings, celebrating it in Jordan carries real feelings of solidarity especially amid the circumstances of war, refugees and compulsory displacement of persons in the region.

Christmas in Jordan this year is overshadowed by feelings of grief and pain as Jordanians recall “what our Christian brothers in the region witnessed of pains of wars, compulsory displacement and being away from their countries, families and beloved” according to HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal, Chairman of the board of trustees of the Royal Institute for Interfaith Studies.

The prince who met heads of churches in Jordan today (Saturday, 27 December), at the Greek Melkite Catholic Archeparchy of Petra and Philadelphia in Amman, sees that it is necessary, as the region suffers recurring crises, “to renew the call to peace and justice based on the human noble values of both Islam and Christianity.”

It is important that everyone recall that “what matters are those who suffer everywhere”, the prince goes on saying, and that “we cannot face the hatred industry and its producers by following the same shameful path that we oppose. Why don’t we take our work to the street of pluralism, diversity, hatred and love in order to uproot the seeds of evil which is affecting us.”

Prince El Hassan thanked Pope Francis who, in a recent speech, “reminds us of our current situations in Arab Mashreq and Maghreb, and what our Christian brothers in Iraq face. A number of them observe Christmas for the first time in Jordan, the country that reflects the Jordanian morals which stem out of an original Arab culture.”

The Prince linked reaching peace in the region with fulfilling the cultural rights of its nations, as “human rights” is a culture of meeting between the citizens on a mutual ground. Such ground must support these cultural rights without discrimination, and enhance the values of coexistence and mutual respect.

Early this month, El Hassan participated in the third Christian-Muslim Summit in Rome titled “Christians and Muslims: Believers in Society”. The summit called for peace in the world and especially for a just and comprehensive peace for Jerusalem, and the Holy Land in its entirety, which embraces the three Abrahamic religions and witnesses to unity and diversity, and thus embodies the message of dialogue, coexistence and respect. It also condemned the use of religion and/or religious terms to legitimize any unjust action in the name of religion and reaffirmed that we worship the one God.

In this context, the Prince considers seeking peace and justice in the region must be based on the humanitarian law and on spreading the awareness of values which guarantees that human dignity be one of the top priorities of development efforts.

El Hassan did not forget to put under focus the western media which deliberately and selectively transmit cruel scenes of slaughtering the innocence in the region, which sow terror in the hearts of viewers. He called these media to go beyond the considerations of race, color and religion in their coverage of the events in the region.

In a greeting speech, Archbishop Yaser Ayyash, the Archbishop of the Greek Melkite Catholic Archeparchy of Petra and Philadelphia, addressed the prince saying “we all work for peace and your efforts in this field have their own values and meanings, locally and internationally.”

The meeting was attended by heads of churches in Jordan and a number of Christian and Muslim figures.