Promoting understanding
World Religion Day is held on the third Sunday in January every year. The aim of World Religion Day is to promote inter-faith understanding and harmony. Through a variety of events held around the globe, followers of every religion are encouraged to acknowledge the similarities that different faiths have.
It was started by the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’í faith. It was first known as being a day for World Peace Through World Religion in the state of Maine, United States, in 1947. It became known as World Religion Day in 1950.
It was decided that for one day a year, all religions should be celebrated and their similarities appreciated.
The day calls for members of all religions in the world to recognise that all religion has a common spiritual goal. That aims to promote the unity of religious people and overcome our differences.
For many centuries, different faiths have fought both ideologically and physically. World Religion Day aims to bring people together to overcome this and achieve a peaceful understanding between faiths.