(Brussels) The religious leaders invited to today’s meeting in Brussels between the European institutions and the communities of faith of the Old Continent were about twenty. There were: mgr. Jean Kockerols, auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Malines-Brussels and first deputy president of Comece (Commission of the EU Bishops Conferences); bishop Czeslaw Kozon (Copenhagen), president of the Nordic Bishops Conference and deputy president of Comece; metropolitan Athenagoras of Belgium, exarch of the Netherlands and Luxembourg; mgr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, bishop of Bavaria and president of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany; imam Hassen Chalghoumi of Drancy (France), former president of the French conference of imams; Arie Folger, chief rabbi of the Jewish community in Vienna; Albert Guigui, chief rabbi of Brussels and permanent delegate of the Conference of European rabbis to the European Union; imam Benjamin Idriz, director of the Islamic community in Penzberg; Antje Jackelen, archbishop of the Church of Sweden; imam Yahya Pallavicini, president of the Islamic religious community in Italy; metropolitan Polycarpus, patriarchal vicar of the Netherlands and of the Czech and Slovakian Syrian Orthodox Church; archbishop Ratislav of Prešov, primate of the Czech and Slovakian Orthodox church; Lakshmi Vyas, president of the Hindu Forum of Europe. The dialogue between the European Union and churches, religions, philosophical and non-confessional organisations was laid down by article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty, enforced in 2009.