‘House of One’ interfaith place to come up in Berlin

Story by  ATV | Posted by  Aasha Khosa • 2 Years ago
An Imam, Rabbi and Priest at the site
An Imam, Rabbi and Priest at the site

 

‘House of One’  interfaith place to come up in Berlin

New Delhi

 A group of Muslims, Jews and Christians have laid the foundation stone of a building in the German capital as a symbol of interfaith unity and dialogue, where followers of all the Abrahamic religion can pray under a common roof.

The common-faith building located in central Berlin is expected to be completed by 2025.

The building will contain three separate places of worship for Christians, Jews and Muslims. Yet the mosque, the synagogue and the protestant church will be connected by a large communal hall designed to host communal events and festivals.

The gesture of unity at the site

It’s being built on the site of a 13th-century church that was damaged in the world war and then demolished by the communist regime in Tte 1960s.

The new building been called the 'House of One' and therefore conveys an important message at this juncture in history.

The imam, pastor and rabbi all said short prayers before symbolic objects from all three religions were cast into the concrete.

It took ten years to conceive and plan the project and it would take four years for completion. The project will cost 47.3 million euros. This expense will be met with a donation of 10 million from the German government and Berlin’s 12 million euros. The rest of the money will be raised from other sources, including donations from other countries.

According to official figures for the year, Berlin has a majority of people -60 per cent - with no religion.  Protestants make up about 19 per cent of the city’s 3.4 million population; Muslims are 8.1 per cent while Jews make up for less than 1 per cent.

Archaeological excavations in Berlin's St. Peter's Square in 2007 revealed that the site was inhabited by Christian. There were four different churches named after Saint Peter around the place and those were demolished in 1960..

The land where the House of One will come up

According to Roland Ashtolte, instead of re-establishing a new church in Berlin, the Protestant community wanted to use it in a way that would reflect the city's multi-religious identity.

Qadir Sanchi, a Turkish-born imam representing Muslims, belongs to the Forum for Intercultural Dialogue, a Berlin-based Muslim organization. According to Qadir Sanchi, seeing Catholic and Protestant churches under one roof in Darmstadt, a suburb of Frankfurt, he thought that the centre could be set up where Muslims, Christians and Jews could worship under one roof.

 “It’s a very symbolic step forward for us,” said Kadir Sanci, the Turkish origin Imam of the future mosque.

 “In these times of polarization which cast a huge shadow on the world, the ‘House of One’ embodies the constructive spirit of faith and spirituality,” he added.

The unity of religion; all the people present for foundation stone laying pose for the cameras

The multi-faith building would be “a place of peace and security” at a time when tensions between Berlin’s Jewish and Muslim communities have flared in the wake of the recent conflict in the Middle East.

There was outrage in Germany in recent weeks after Israeli flags were burned and anti-Semitic slogans chanted at some pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Germany.

Speaking at the ceremony, Berlin mayor Michael Müller said “hatred, violence, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, racism and incitement to racial hatred has no place in our society”.