Parliament of the World’s Religions

There have been several meetings referred to as a Parliament of the World’s Religions.

1893 Parliament

In 1893, the city of Chicago hosted the World Columbian Exposition, an early world’s fair. So many people were coming to Chicago from all over the world that many smaller conferences, called Congresses and Parliaments, were scheduled to take advantage of this unprecedented gathering. One of these was the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

The 1893 Parliament, which ran from September 11 to September 27, had marked the first formal gathering of representatives of Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. The eloquence of Swami Vivekananda and his introduction of Hindu thought to the United States are particularly remembered. Today it is recognized as the occasion of the birth of formal interreligious dialogue worldwide.

Absent from this event were Native American religious figures and other Indigenous and Earth religionists. It would take a century before these religions and spiritual traditions were represented.

1993 Parliament

The Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions (CPWR), host organization for the Parliaments of the last two decades, officially dates from 1988 when two monks from the Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago suggested organizing a centennial celebration of the 1893 World's Parliament of Religions.

In 1993, the Parliament was convened at the Palmer House hotel in Chicago. Over 8,000 people from all over the world, from many diverse religions, gathered to celebrate and dialog and explore how religious traditions can work together on the critical issues which confront us all. Dr. Gerald Barney of the Millennium Institute gave the keynote address on the state of the environment. This keynote and the introduction of the document, An Initial Declaration, set the tone for the subsequent ten days of discussion. This global ethic was endorsed by many of the attending religious and spiritual leaders who were part of the Parliament Assembly.

Also created for the 1993 Parliament was a book, A Sourcebook for the Community of Religions by the late Joel Belvarluis which has become a standard textbook in religion classes. Unlike most textbooks of religion each entry was written by members of the religion in question. The text of the revised Sourcebook is available online at Sourcebook

1999 Parliament

More than 7,000 individuals from over 80 countries attended 1999 Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa. The Parliament began with a showing of the International AIDS Quilt to highlight the epidemic of AIDS in South Africa, and of the role that religious and spiritual traditions play in facing the critical issues that face the world. The event continued with hundreds of panels, symposia and workshops, offerings of prayer and meditation, plenaries and performances. The programs emphasized issues of religious, spiritual, and cultural identity, approaches to interreligious dialogue, and the role of religion in response to the critical issues facing the world today.

The Parliament Assembly considered a document called A Call to Our Guiding Institutions, addressed to religion, government, business, education, and media inviting these institutions to reflect on and transform their roles at the threshold of the next century.

In addition to the Call, the Parliament staff had created a book Gifts of Service to the World showcasing over 300 projects making a difference in the world. Assembly attendees also deliberated about Gifts of Service which they could offer or could pledge to support among those gathered in the Gifts document.

2004 Parliament

It was celebrated in the Universal Forum of Cultures. More than 8,900 individuals attended the 2004 Parliament in Barcelona, Spain. Having created the declaration Toward a Global Ethic at the 1993 Parliament and attempted to engage guiding institutions at the 1999 Parliament, the 2004 Parliament concentrated on four pressing issues: mitigating religiously motivated violence, access to safe water, the fate of refugees worldwide, and the elimination of external debt in developing countries. Attendees were asked to make a commitment to a "simple and profound act" to work on one of these issues.

Over the next five to six years people around the world will implement their commitments. Then this vibrant embodiment of the international interfaith community will again come together to strive to, in the words of the CPWR mission statement, "cultivate harmony between the world's religious and spiritual communities and foster their engagement with the world and its other guiding institutions in order to achieve a peaceful, just, and sustainable world".

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External links

Religious organizations