Bologne ECER Declaration-2,  29th of August, 2010

The WCER delegates who gathered in Bologna, Italy (2010.08. 26-29) at our yearly conference came to the decision that from now on our name should be changed to European Congress of Ethnic Religions. The word “World” should be “European” instead. Why did we decide to focus only on Europe? Thirteen years have passed since the creation of the Congress in 1998 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Every year, conferences were organized in various European countries and it turned out that that the Congress actually unites only people of European indigenous traditions, even though the congress is open to all other traditions.

This year Bologna saw a gathering of representatives from Italian,  Danish, Norwegian, German, French, Greek, Lithuanian, Latvian, Portuguese, Czech, Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian ethnic religions. It was decided that the main concern for us all is Europe’s ancient spiritual traditions. There is a lot of unity among us, and we feel the need to come together. The main point in all our discussions has been that Europe suffers the most because of its traditions’ weakness, especially in the spiritual sense.  As oriental cults thrive, European traditions are seen as obsolete, which can exist only in a museum. However, we have begun to understand now the importance and value of our own indigenous traditions. We also decided to strengthen our ties with the Parliament of World Religions and work together with India’s cultural and religious organizations.