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European Ethnic Religions Declaration Pursues Better Social Cohesion and Environmental Protections

Written by Andras Corban-Arthen
July 18, 2014

A Declaration of the European Congress of Ethnic Religions via Parliament Trustee Andras Corban Arthen, who serves as a Presiding and Interfaith Liason to the Congress, Member of the Parliament of the World’s Religions Indigenous Task Force, and Spiritual Director of the EarthSpirit Community.

We, the delegates from thirteen different countries convened at the European Congress of Ethnic Religions in Vilnius, Lithuania, on this 9th day of July 2014, join our voices together to make the following declaration:

We are members of diverse European indigenous ethnic cultures who seek to revitalize and reclaim our ancestral religious and spiritual traditions. We honor those who went before us, who gave us our life and our heritage. We are bound to the lands of our ancestors, to the soil that holds their bones, to the waters from which they drank, to the roads that they once walked.  And we seek to pass that heritage to those who come after us, whose ancestors we are in the process of becoming – our children, our grandchildren, and the many generations yet to be born. We send solidarity and support to those other indigenous nations, races and religions who are also engaged in the struggle to preserve their own ancestral heritages.
Our ethnic religions are the product of the history of this continent; they are the living expressions, in the present, of our most ancient traditions and identities. At a time when the world is precariously balanced on the edge of environmental and economic upheaval, largely as the result of imbalanced individualism and rampant greed, our religions promote very different models of spiritual and social values: living in harmony, balance and moderation with the Earth; the importance of family and cooperative community; and respect and honor for all forms of life. Yet, in many countries of Europe, the practice of our religions is impeded, restricted, and sometimes forbidden. We urge all European governments to fully comply with, and actively enforce, the provisions guaranteeing freedom of religion to all citizens as stipulated in the Treaties of the European Union, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the European Convention of Human Rights, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other similar conventions and agreements, and to refrain from granting preferential treatment to some religions over others. We also ask that this equality of religious preference be reflected in the European educational systems.
We urge all our governments to actively engage in the preservation and protection of European indigenous sacred sites – be they human-made structures or natural settings. We further ask that free and open access to those sites be given to ethnic European religions which seek to use them for the purposes of worship and spiritual celebration.
We do not seek ownership or exclusive rights to those sites – the land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.
We object to the use of the term “pagan” by extremist political groups of any kind, as it reflects negatively on our reputation.
Finally, we urge all peoples and all nations to place the well-being of the Earth – who is, literally, our Living Mother – above any and all other priorities.
We send this message in kinship, love, and respect.

Featured Image: Parliament Trustee Andras Corban-Arthan presides over the meeting of the European Congress of Ethnic Religions in Lithuania, July, 2014.
Above Left: Delegates of 13 European nations convene to issue a powerful declaration calling for the equal station of minority ancestral, indigenous and ethnic groups, and for the protection of the Earth as sacred land.
Above Right: Opening session of the Congress