SDI No. 2 -US-USSR - A "Sacred Summit"

and Pentagon Prayer Breakfast

(INTERNATIONAL TRANSFORMATION PROJECT)

Changing Perspectives On Global Security

By Ed Winchester         

Without a doubt an historical event occurred on the morning of February 4, 1988. Representatives of the Soviet Central Committee and Soviet clergy met with over 400 Department of Defense military and civilian personnel at a prayer breakfast inside the Pentagon building.  The Soviet group included Metropolitan Sergei Petrov, Rabbi Yuri Korzhenevich, and Sadyikzhan Kamalov of the Muslim Religious Board, four Christians from Moscow’s Danilov monastery, plus Mr. Genrikh Borovik and other representatives from the Soviet Peace Committee and interpreters bringing the total number of the group to fifteen.  The group entered the Pentagon building as predicted, precisely at 7:30 a.m.  The largest delegation ever to attend a function at the Pentagon was escorted by a small cadre of Pentagon Meditation Club members.

The stated goal for this Sacred Summit at the Pentagon was to demonstrate a transformation model for “Changing Perspectives on Global Security By Changing Consciousness” through centering prayer/meditation.  The Summit occurred by using meditation and prayer to bring East and West together as friends, resolving issues, and praying together and for each other.

Another goal was to call attention to a concept derived from the Bible, called the "Peace Shield Effect." That concept implies that individuals and entire nations can be protected in times of crisis through prayer, and that objective measures can be used to systematically predict and track positive advances in social, economic, and other performance indicators.  A prerequisite for this kind of spiritual defense is that people turn their attention inward in regular daily prayer, calling on the Name of God, then fearlessly engaging in positive, constructive action.

Consider the fact that for decades the U.S. Department of Defense strictly enforced a policy that no one from the Soviet Union was allowed to put a foot legally on any U.S. military installation. It was unthinkable in 1987 that a delegation of communists might have the privilege of entering the Pentagon for any reason.

In group meditations held by the Pentagon Meditation Club military and civilians began thinking the unthinkable thought that both sides would eventually come together as friends. What better place for old adversaries to meet each other than at a prayer breakfast inside the Pentagon. Group meditations sessions held at the Pentagon from 1986 to 1988 typically ended with people holding a common thought: "world leaders coming together to resolve issues which divided nations, and praying together and for each other."

An unprecedented event took place at the Pentagon on February 4, 1988. It came as a surprise to many people when the Pentagon Meditation Club was given permission to escort a delegation from the U.S.S.R  inside the Pentagon building.  The official approval came from the Deputy Secretary of Defense.

Before that event happened, the unlikely guests heard about an innovative project called the “Pentagon Spiritual Defense Initiative,” and actually did a group meditation at a Summit held in Alexandria, Virginia. On January 26, 1988, a special delegation of 100 Soviets sponsored by the Soviet Peace Committee arrived from Moscow at Dulles International Airport for the purpose of  attending a Soviet-American "Citizens’ Summit."

The Summit invitees included 300 American delegates and 150 task force representatives of the United States who might be considered to be among the most creative thinkers and social innovators in the United States. At that “Sacred Summit” PMC representative Edward Winchester spoke at a seminar to a group of about 40 people on security, the topic:   “Changing Perspectives on Global Security By Changing Consciousness.” Then seminar participants asked to be shown how to meditate and actually did a group Peace Shield Meditation. 

The meditation experience ended by envisioning a Soviet delegation arriving at the Pentagon at precisely 7:30 a.m. the next morning February 4, 1988, for a Prayer Breakfast with American military personnel. When the seminar concluded,  Edward Winchester telephoned the Office of the Deputy Secretary of Defense and received news he and the PMC would be allowed to bring a delegation of  Soviet clergy and  representatives of the Soviet Peace Committee to a Prayer Breakfast at the Pentagon the following morning.

According to US Department of Defense policies this event was not supposed to happen.  Yet the impossible happened, and with official approval from the highest levels in the Department of Defense.