FRIENDSHIP through religion is the key to offering the world hope, according to Oxfordshire vicar Marcus Braybrooke.

And he should know.

Dr Braybrooke has just been presented with a lifetime achievement award from a Hindu charity.

Former Nuneham Courtenay parish priest Dr Braybrooke travelled to Chennai in India to receive his award.

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President of the World Congress of Faiths Dr Braybrooke, who lives with wife Mary in Clifton Hampden, near Abingdon, has dedicated his life to understanding between religions.

The lifetime achievement award from the Sri Ramanuja Trust celebrated his years of campaigning for better communications between Hindus and Christians Dr Braybrooke, 75, said: “The task has been to get religions to overcome prejudice and hostility.

“There has been a dramatic change even in Britain but there is still so much negative use of religion. It can be used for good and evil.”

Surrey-born Dr Braybrooke said his life-long mission began on a trip to India as a theology student at Cambridge University.

He spent some time there working at a leprosy clinic, offering ministry to people alongside Christian and Muslim missionaries and a devout Hindu doctor.

He said: “I thought then ‘why can’t religions work together?’”

One of his proudest achievements was organising a 1993 global interfaith conference in India. He said: “It was a wonderful, happy event where everything just worked.”

But a more poignant moment came on a trip to a village in Mexico.

He joined a trip with The Peace Council, following the massacre of 50 people there, to perform a religious dedication of the village.

He said: “I went with a Hindu, a Muslim and a Buddhist to say prayers.

“A local priest told us one woman had lost four children in the massacre and she told him she was going to take her own life.

“But, after the prayers, she said ‘my suffering hasn’t gone away, but I have been given hope’.

“It is all about a friendship which crosses boundaries.”

Dr and Mrs Braybrooke, who now have six grandchildren, servedham Courtenay from 1994. He is now semi-retired and takes services in Dorchester.

Dr Braybrooke travelled to India to receive the award at the beginning of this month.

Alongside a plaque, the trust also donated £10,000 in his name for youth work in southern India.

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