The rest of the world has much to learn from the pioneering interfaith work carried out in Bradford, according to the Archbishop of York.

Looking back at the end of a three-day visit to the Bradford Diocese, Dr David Hope said he had taken away with him a series of initiatives which he hoped would be repeated elsewhere.

Talking about the Interfaith Education Centre, in Listerhills Road, he said: "It's an exemplary model for the rest of the country and the rest of the world."

It was the first time he had visited Bradford since he became Archbishop in 1995. It was also the first time he had visited since he was a child when his parents used to take him to the city as a treat.

Dr Hope set the agenda in Bradford, wanting to experience the inner-city work in a multicultural setting and in the rural outskirts of the diocese which reaches into the Dales.

"It's been a huge contrast and in some ways they are worlds apart and the real question is: how do these worlds make connections with each other? It's a real microcosm of the wider world," he told the T&A.

"What did impress me is that there seems to be a real confidence among the differing faith communities in their own faith tradition. There has been a tendency in the past to say we are all the same. Here there has been the courage to say we are different and for people to say I am a Christian and proud to be a Christian and Muslims to say they are proud."

During the three days he visited, among others, the Bradford Royal Infirmary's new multi-faith chaplaincy and saw a church school where children of different faiths pray together in assembly.

He hopes areas which do not have such a rich ethnic mix will visit the inner-city churches and visa versa to increase learning.

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