Trieste hosts many different religious communities. Some have lived in the city for centuries, others have settled there or grown larger with the proclamation of the free port and the Habsburgs’ religious tolerance provisions in favour of non-Catholic religions aiming to foster the settlement in the new port of traders from various parts of Europe and the Mediterranean. These religious groups have thus characterized this city, which is at the same time religiously tolerant and based on trade.
The college students therefore welcomed with great interest an invitation to participate on October 4 last in an Interfaith and Multicultural Meeting for the Safeguarding of the Environment organized in Trieste.
A delegation of 15 students (from Armenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brasil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iraq, Lebanon, Mozambique, Peru, Romania and Serbia) attended the event. Following the statements of the numerous leaders of the various religious communities involved, ten of them went up on stage to read invocations in their native languages, thus bearing witness to the transversality of the attention and respect for the environment that permeates all cultures and religions.
