Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy
organization
The Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (Greek: Διακοινοβουλευτική Συνέλευση Ορθοδοξίας, Russian: Межпарламентская Ассамблея Православия), or I.A.O., is a transnational, inter-parliamentary institution that in 1994 was originally established as the European Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (EIAO).
Based in Athens, Greece, the Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy constitutes a permanent communication structure between parliamentarians of member states aiming at unity in diversity of Orthodox Christians on the principles and values of Christianity and democracy.
History
Inspired by a conference held from 30 June to 4 July 1993 in Chalkidiki on the topic of "Orthodoxy in the New European Reality", the European Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy was formed by the initiative of the Hellenic Parliament. Following the 1993 Manifesto of the Participants, the official Founding Act was passed by the participants of the Founding Synod held in November 1994 in Athens. In 2001, groups of parliamentarians from Australia, Asia, Africa and the United States participated in the General Assembly, the organization was then renamed Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy (I.A.O.).
During the June 2004 General Assembly in Kyiv, Ukraine, it was decided to seek cooperation with the Parliamentary Union of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (P.U.I.C.). A co-operation agreement was drafted at a meeting of the two organizations on 22 March 2005, in Athens. On 19 May 2010, a cooperation agreement with the Pan-African Parliament was signed by PUIC's President Idriss Ndele Moussa and I.A.O.'s Secretary-General Anastasios Nerantzis
Massive protests broke out during the 2019 General Assembly in Tbilisi, Georgia, after the chairman of the assembly, a Russian communist named Sergei Gavrilov, made a number of public statements that were viewed by the Georgian public as denigrating Georgian sovereignty.
The delegation from Russia, as well as the delegations from Belarus and Syria, were unable to attend the 2023 General Assembly due to EU sanctions. The election of a Polish president ended the three decade long Russian control of the presidency.
The public source identifies “Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy” as organization. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Interparliamentary, Assembly and Orthodoxy.
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Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19895404. VIAF identifies the subject as 172490320. The Library of Congress control number is n98039254. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1993, 2001 and 2004.
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This entry incorporates text from “Interparliamentary Assembly on Orthodoxy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.