Faiths and Ethnic Communities
The Prince of Wales has worked for many years to encourage inter-faith dialogue, greater understanding of different religions and wider involvement of ethnic communities within British communal life.
Personal Faith
The Prince of Wales is a practising Anglican and attends church regularly with The Duchess of Cornwall.
As Heir to The Throne, The Prince of Wales is also heir to the Sovereign's special role, dating back to the 16th Century, as Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England - the first title granted by Pope Leo X to King Henry VIII, and the second stemming from the establishment of the Church of England.
The Prince was christened in December 1948 at Buckingham Palace and confirmed at Windsor Castle in 1965. His Royal Highness chose to begin the day of his 21st birthday by taking Holy Communion in the chapel of the Tower of London.
The Prince is profoundly attached to the traditional rites of the Church of England and to the Book of Common Prayer, which he described in 1989 has having survived because it was "sensitive to the profound human need for continuity and permanence".
The Prince of Wales meets regularly with senior members of the Anglican Church. In February 2007, The Prince met with the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dr Richard Chartres, and in March His Royal Highness met with the Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend James Jones.
On The Prince of Wales's 59th birthday (14th November 2007), Their Royal Highnesses visited Jesus House in Brent Cross, London, to celebrate the work of Black majority churches in the United Kingdom. Click here to read the news story and here to read The Prince's speech.
In May 2008, The Prince of Wales visited Ridley Hall theological college in Cambridge and met The Principal and students going through ordination training for the Church of England.
In June 2008, The Prince hosted a reception to thank volunteers for ‘Hope 2008’, an initiative by Christian organisations to have an impact on their local communities at Clarence House.
The Prince is Patron of The Prayer Book Society and attended their annual conference in September 2006, held on the day of the 450th anniversary of the martyrdom of the book’s author Thomas Cranmer.
His Royal Highness is also Patron of a number of organisations that help maintain the vibrancy of church communities and preserve places of worship such as the Churches Conservation Trust, Music in Country Churches, Friends of Exeter Cathedral, Friends of Canterbury Cathedral, the Hereford Cathedral Perpetual Trust, Norfolk Churches Trust, Round Tower Churches Society, Salisbury Cathedral Trust and the Wells Cathedral Preservation Trust.
Inter-faith dialogue
The Prince has long called for an acknowledgement of the strengths of other religious traditions, and for greater mutual understanding amongst the adherents of the world's different faiths. In 1994 The Prince said, "I personally would rather see it [his future role] as Defender of Faith, not the Faith".
The Prince has given many speeches on the need for greater understanding between different faiths.
In March 2006, His Royal Highness addressed over 800 Islamic scholars at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt and called for greater dialogue between the three Abrahamic faiths: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
The Prince was awarded an honorary doctorate from the university for his work to encourage inter-faith dialogue and was the first Western man to receive this honour.
During the same overseas tour with The Duchess of Cornwall, His Royal Highness repeated his call at Saudi Arabia’s most senior Islamic University, the Imam Muhammad bin Saud University in Riyadh, the first Christian to speak there.
His Royal Highness also set up The Prince’s School for Traditional Arts in East London to bring a wider appreciation of the arts and craft skills which have deep roots in all the major faith traditions. The school teaches Islamic architecture, icon painting, Islimi and Arabesque craft, and stained glass skills to pupils of all religions and backgrounds.
The school has developed outreach and education programmes for young people and is also working with a number of governments in Arab and Asian countries to build links with institutions.
Since 1993 The Prince has been Patron of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. His Royal Highness is also Patron of the Jewish Museum's 75th Anniversary.
In November 2007, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall visited the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir in Neasden, north west London, the largest Hindu temple in Europe, to join the celebrations for Diwali, the Festival of Light which welcomes in the Hindi New Year.
Ethnic Communities
The Prince's work to promote inter-faith dialogue has often overlapped with his efforts to support ethnic communities throughout the United Kingdom.
While travelling around the country, His Royal Highness has interacted with Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews and people from other faiths and has always been greatly impressed by the solidarity and vibrancy of communities that have made the effort to share and learn from one another.
In 2004, The Prince presided over the first British Citizenship Ceremony at Brent Hall in London and welcomed 19 people of 10 different nationalities as citizens of the United Kingdom.
Many of The Prince’s 20 Charities work closely with ethnic communities across the UK. The Prince has specifically encouraged The Prince’s Trust and Business in the Community, two organisations which work closely with disadvantaged younger people, to work hard to develop a close understanding of minority ethnic communities.
In September 2006, The Prince visited Edgbaston Cricket Ground to launch The Prince’s Trust Cricket Initiative. He met England cricket players Sajid Mahmood, Vikram Solanki and Ashley Giles and discussed how cricket can help unemployed young Asians by getting them involved with The Prince's Trust.
Business in the Community's Race for Opportunity programme exists to convince companies of the sound economic sense of reaching out to different ethnic communities - to find suppliers and consumers, as well as employees.
The Prince has taken business leaders on Seeing is Believing tours into many inner city areas with high concentrations of residents from different ethnic backgrounds, to show how self-help schemes can tackle high unemployment.
Similarly, in 1986 The Prince helped establish the Windsor Fellowships, which encourage and support ethnic minority undergraduates and enrich the educational journey of the UK’s diverse population.
The Prince set up in 1982 the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust to help bright young students, from the diverse range of Commonwealth countries, pursue higher education in Cambridge.
In August 2006, The Prince of Wales’s office, with the Oxford Centre of Islamic Studies, led a summer school for young British Muslims, the Young Muslim Leadership Programme, to encourage their fullest participation in British society.