c. 1998 Religion News Service

NEW YORK _ Sir Sigmund Sternberg, a Hungarian-born British businessman who spent more than a half century building bridges among the world’s faiths, was named Wednesday (March 4) the 1998 winner of the $1.2 million Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion.

Little known to the general public, Sternberg, 76, currently chairman of the executive committee of the International Council of Christians and Jews, has played a key role in several of the 20th century’s landmark events in religious diplomacy.

He helped organize the first visit by a pope to a synagogue, was instrumental in gaining the Vatican recognition of the state of Israel, and helped resolve a dispute over the convent near the site of the Auschwitz concentration camp, a crisis that threatened relations between Catholics and Jews.

The Templeton Prize, funded in such a manner as always to exceed the Nobel Peace Prize, has been given annually since 1973 to a living individual who has shown originality in advancing the world’s understanding of God and spirituality. It is named for Sir John Templeton, a global investor who started the prize because he felt the Nobel Prize did not recognize religious achievements. Among the best known recipients of the prize are Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

In recent years the award has gone to conservative Roman Catholic philosopher Michael Novak (1994), physicist Paul Davies (1995), and Bill Bright, president of Campus Crusade for Christ (1996). Last year’s prize went to Pandurang Shastri Athavale, founder of the”swadhyaya”self-study movement in India.

Sternberg and his family fled to Britain shortly before World War II to escape growing anti-Semitism in Hungary. According to Sternberg, it was his own experience with religious persecution that drove him to fighting racism and prejudice.”I saw a lot of injustice in Hungary,”Sternberg said in an interview with RNS.”As a child, I would hear people call Jews `Christ killers.’ Of course, I knew I had nothing to do with it. It bothered me for a long time.” Denied a college education in Hungary because of quotas imposed on Jewish students, Sternberg never returned to school, but during the war became involved in an early interfaith dialogue group he credits with setting him on his present path.

After the war, he made millions in the metal recovery business and heavily contributed to a variety of philanthropic endeavors, among them founding the Sternberg Center, the largest Jewish cultural center in Europe.

Sternberg has been recognized for his charitable works and contributions to interfaith dialogue by virtually every nation in Europe. In 1976, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and in 1985 was made a papal knight, one of first Jews granted that honor.”I’ve made a commitment to defend the crown and defend the pope. Heaven forbid Britain and the Vatican should go to war,”said Sternberg, displaying his characteristic dry wit.

Patience and persistence have been the trademarks of Sternberg’s negotiating style, and he knows how to find common ground between disparate groups.

He once brought a photo of himself _ in full military regalia _ accepting the papal knighthood from Pope John Paul II to the group of Carmelite nuns who had established a controversial convent near Auschwitz. The creation of the Catholic shrine just 80 feet from the Nazi death camp offended Jews the world over.

But Sternberg felt the image of a Jew being recognized by the spiritual leader of the Catholic Church helped win the nuns’ confidence and opened the door to discussions leading to the relocation of the convent.

Still, Sternberg is not afraid to speak his mind no matter the occasion or the audience.

When he accompanied Pope John Paul II on his historic visit to a Rome synagogue in 1986, the pope asked Sternberg his opinion of the experience.”I told him I though it was 2,000 years too late,”Sternberg recalled.”I said if you’d come then, think of how many lives might have been saved.” Sternberg, on a visit to New York for the announcement of the prize, looks more the part an English country gentleman in his muted plaid suit and sensible shoes, than roving spiritual ambassador to the world.

But he thinks the key to ending religious violence is in the hands of the people, not politicians or even religious leaders.”I would like to see ordinary people, doing more of the talking,”he said while surveying the United Nations building from his 36th floor hotel suite.”There are a great deal of believers out there. Forget the clergymen, people should form an assembly. In the Old Testament the covenant was not made with Moses and Abraham, it was with the people.”

DEA END WORDEN