Archbishop's Christian-Muslim initiative continues in Sarajevo

The conference will run from May 16th-18th and is being co-hosted by the Rais al-Ulama Dr Mustafa Ceric, Metropolitan Nikolaj, and Cardinal Vinko Puljic. The meeting will be chaired by Dr Williams.

As previously, Christian and Muslim scholars from across the world will hold detailed discussions over three days. This year speakers will focus on Christians, Muslims and the Common Good, seeking to understand how their traditions and beliefs inform their approach to public life.

Dr Williams said that he hoped the conference would build on the work of previous gatherings:

"Muslims and Christians share space with each other, literally and in the more extended sense that they seek to understand the world in the context of God's purpose. We need to share with each other how we approach this challenge, so that we can find what our shared hopes and goals might be."

As with the previous three gatherings, it is hoped that an account of the deliberations will be published in book form.

Notes for editors:

A full list of participants and further details of the programme will be published next week.

The first Building Bridges seminar was hosted at Lambeth Palace by Dr George Carey when Archbishop of Canterbury in January 2002. The proceedings of this seminar, for which Muslim and Christian scholars gathered for a wide-ranging theological dialogue, were published as The Road Ahead (Church House Publishing, ISBN 0-7151-5002-2).

The second seminar was convened by Dr Rowan Williams and hosted by the Amir of Qatar and held in Doha in April 2003. These proceedings were published as Scriptures in Dialogue (Church House Publishing, ISBN 0-7151-4012-4).

The third seminar in the series took place last March in Washington DC, convened by Dr Williams and hosted by Dr John J DeGioia, the President of Georgetown University. These proceedings were published as Bearing the Word (Church House Publishing, ISBN 0-7151-4050-7).