The University of Florence opens the ‘Silence Room’, for prayer and meditation

At the ribbon cutting the rector Petrucci with the imam Izzeddin Elzir, the chief rabbi Piperno and the abbot of San Miniato, father Bernardo Gianni

FLORENCE – A room for prayer, meditation and reflection. The University of Florence inaugurates the ‘Room of silence’. The space, created in the atrium of the library of the social sciences campus of Novoli and desired by the rector, Alessandra Petrucci, “continues a path marked by intercultural dialogue started in recent months with the meeting, last January, between the representatives of the different confessions and the students of the University”, explains Unifi. Precisely for this reason, the imam, Izzeddin Elzir, the abbot of San Miniato, Father Bernardo Gianni, and the chief rabbi, Gad Piperno, attended the inauguration. But also Melody Crea, representative of the Bahai community, and Anna Maria Shinnyo Marradi, abbot of the Shinnyo temple in Florence.

RETTRICE: “SPECIAL PLACE THAT OFFERS PROTECTION WITHOUT SYMBOLS OR IDEOLOGIES”

The one opened today “is a special place, which offers protection and consolation, a space for meditation or dialogue, for reflection or discussion. It is a plural place, without symbols or ideologies. In a culture marked by the noise and solitude of the virtual, this place invites us to listen to each other”, underlines Petrucci.