(16 Oct 2016) LEAD IN:
Prominent figures met for the inauguration of the Moses shrine on Mount Nebo, Jordan.
Jordan wants to show how Christian and Muslim communities can live in harmony, and how the country can assist those in need, particularly refugees.

STORY-LINE:
The Moses memorial shrine on Mount Nebo is considered a holy site for Christians and one stage of the Christian pilgrimage tour in Jordan.
Islam and Judaism also consider the shrine a sacred place, based on their holy scriptures.
Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, head of the congregation for Eastern Churches and Special Envoy of His Holiness Pope Francis, inaugurated the shrine in a ceremony attended by government officials and various representatives of the local community.
He mentioned the need for Jordan to take a prominent role in helping refugees.
"From this mountain our gaze reaches to the lands that we inwardly contemplate. The kingdom of Jordan, which extended its boundaries nearly to this mountain, has become in recent years a place of welcome hospitality and healing for thousands, thousands of refugees and exiles from the suffering lands of Palestine, Syria and Iraq."
The shrine was closed for many years in order to finish maintenance and restoration works which included mainly the church, mosaics, and parts of the site itself.
The renovation and restoration works dealt with mosaics inside the church of Moses, which is dated to the Byzantine era.
American Ambassador to Jordan Alice G.Wells, speaks about the significance of the restoration.
"I think it really underscores Jordan's importance at the crossroads of the three Monotheistic faiths, as really the cradle of faith and culture for so many of us and an important site for Christian pilgrimage. But for me as ambassador, I think it reminds me of the modern importance of Jordan as a country, as an example to the Middle East, of a country where Christians and Muslims live together in harmony and how the leadership and the people here are fighting so hard to insure that sectarian voices don't prevail," she says.
According to archaeologists, the restoration process was necessary in order to maintain certain components of this historical site.


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