Saudi King Salman meets with Lebanese patriarch

Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud received Tuesday at Al-Yamamah palace Lebanese Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rahi, in an historic visit to the Muslim kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The landmark meeting tackled fraternal relations between the Kingdom and Lebanon and confirmed the importance of the role of different religions and cultures in promoting tolerance, renouncing violence, extremism and terrorism and achieving security and peace for the peoples of the region and the world.

The reception was attended by Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Interior; Minister of State and Cabinet Member Dr. Musa ed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban; Minister of Foreign Affairs Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir and Minister of State for Arab Gulf Affairs Thamer bin Sabhan Al-Sabhan.

Rahi began his visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday, being the second Christian patriarch to visit the Kingdom, after another such trip in 1975. Rahi also met during his visit with Saad al-Hariri, who announced his resignation as Lebanon's prime minister from Riyadh on Nov. 4.

Hariri announced his resignation in a television broadcast, saying he believed there was an assassination plot against him and accusing Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah of sowing strife in the Arab world.

Lebanon’s Christian Maronite Patriarch began a historic visit to Saudi Arabia on Monday under heightened scrutiny amid political tensions that have thrust his country back to the forefront of the conflict between the Sunni kingdom and Shi‘ite rival Iran.

Patriarch Beshara al-Rai heads the Maronite church, which has a presence in Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus and follows an Eastern rite of the Roman Catholic church. Maronites number about 900,000 in Lebanon, around a quarter of the population.

An official visit to Saudi Arabia by such a senior non-Muslim cleric is a rare act of religious openness for the kingdom, which hosts the holiest sites in Islam and bans the practice of other religions but says it wants to open up more to the world.