OREANDA-NEWS. February 24, 2010. Belarus’ experience in the preservation of cultural traditions has aroused a huge interest in the international community, Galina Polyanskaya said, Chairperson of the Permanent Committee for Housing Policy, Construction, Trade and Privatization of the House of Representatives, head of the delegation of the National Assembly of Belarus at the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (IPAO). She took part in an international conference in Lebanon.

Representatives of 20 countries (political analysts, sociologists, clergyman, MPs, cultural figures and scholars) came to the town of Tripoli to take part in the University of Balamand International Conference “Traditional spiritual and cultural values as the basis of stable development”.

“The participants of the conference unanimously agreed that in the time of the global financial and economic crisis, the international community is facing a spiritual crisis. They pointed out that amid the talks about the sustained economic development many have forgotten about moral and spiritual development and education,” the deputy said. It is spirituality that plays a key role in the evolution of the society. A human being is at the heart of everything, his/her spirituality determines their aspirations and intentions, and furthermore the development of the society, economy and state, Galina Polyanskaya said.

At the conference, she told about Belarus’ experience of studying the country’s traditional spiritual and cultural heritage, the preservation and promotion of this heritage, about historical and cultural monuments, their value and the efforts undertaken by the state to preserve them. According to the MP, over the last 20 years Belarus has carried out great work in this area. In 2009, the state financed the restoration of some 25 cultural monuments, in 2010 some Br1 billion is to be allocated to restore the former Jesuit Collegium in the village of Yurovichi of the Kalinkovichi Region, almost Br1 billion will be invested in the restoration of the Resurrection Cathedral in Borisov, Br200 million in Assumption monastery in the village of Pustynki of the Mstislavl Region, Mogilev Oblast, just to name a few.

According to Galina Polyanskaya, the report aroused a deep interest in the participants of the conference. Everybody was impressed by the amount of work the country had done to preserve and restore cultural valuables.

The conference in Tripoli is traditional and is held every year by the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy and the International Fund of Unity of Orthodox Peoples. Taking part in the conference were His Beatitude Patriarch Ignatius IV of Antioch and all the East, Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, MPs from Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Romania, Serbia, clergymen and scholars.