The Rev. Victor H. Kazanjian, Jr.

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Former Executive Director

From 2013 to 2021, the Rev. Victor Kazanjian led URl's global grassroots interfaith peacebuilding network of over 1,000 groups working in more than 100 countries and at the United Nations to build bridges of cooperation between people of all beliefs and cultures. Prior to joining URI, Victor served as Dean of lntercultural Education & Religious and Spiritual Life and Co-Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Wellesley College, and as visiting faculty at the Malaviya Center for Peace Research at Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi, India, where he served as Fulbright Professor of Peace and Justice Studies. Co-Founder of Education as Transformation Inc., an international organization that works on religious diversity and spirituality in higher education, Victor is also an author, educator, recognized thought-leader and trainer in areas of intergroup dialogue, multicultural and interreligious understanding, conflict transformation, diversity and democracy, social justice, community organizing, and peacebuilding. He is an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church and was trained as a community organizer working to address the systemic causes of poverty and injustice through the support of community-based groups. He holds degrees from the Episcopal Divinity School and Harvard University.

URI Stories of Impact

Uniting in a Time of Social Distancing

At a time when the human community is being challenged to find unity, as extremists fan the flames of division, and when humanity as a whole has become dangerously alienated from the Earth that sustains us, the COVID19 pandemic and the “social distancing” required has further challenged our sense of unity.

In the Midst of the World's Crises, What Are We Called to Do?

Our human community is in a deepening spiral of conflict, and the planet, which sustains us and all life, careens towards climate disaster. How are we people of diverse religions, spiritual expressions and Indigenous traditions throughout the world who comprise URI called to respond?