The Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, a prominent Buddhist...

The Venerable Havanpola Ratanasara, a prominent Buddhist leader nationally and in Los Angeles, will be one of several honorees on Feb. 23 when the Los Angeles chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews holds its annual volunteer recognition dinner.

Ratanasara, originally from Sri Lanka, is president of the Buddhist Sangha Council of Southern California and the executive chairman of the American Buddhist Congress.

He is being cited for aiding the interfaith body’s “Access to Health Care” conferences in 1984 and 1986, and for co-authoring the program’s interreligious statement distributed through hospitals.

Among other honorees will be Alan Henkin, rabbi of Temple Beth Solomon of the Deaf in the San Fernando Valley. Henkin, who has led the temple since 1980, has been a key leader for a decade in the National Conference of Christians and Jews’ InterSem program for seminarians of the two faiths.

The dinner will coincide with National Brotherhood/Sisterhood Week sponsored annually by the group, which works to reduce tensions between ethnic, racial and religious groups.

LENTEN SERIES

The Right Rev. K. H. Ting, the Anglican bishop of Nanjing, China, will be the first speaker in a Lenten lecture series sponsored by three San Gabriel Valley Episcopal parishes. Ting, a seminary president who heads the unified Protestant body, the China Christian Council, will speak Tuesday night at All Saints in Pasadena, Wednesday night at St. Edmund’s in San Marino and Thursday night at Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, San Gabriel. Presiding Episcopal Bishop Edmond Lee Browning of New York will make one speaking appearance, Feb. 22 in Pasadena.

Lenten breakfasts each Wednesday before Easter at First Congregational Church of Los Angeles will begin next week with John C. Bennett, an eminent ethicist who lives in retirement in Claremont. Bennett is president emeritus of New York’s Union Theological Seminary. Later speakers will include the Rev. James Lawson of Holman United Methodist Church, Rabbi Allen Freehling of Brentwood and Suzanne Johnson, director of the Los Angeles County Adult Reading Project.

PEOPLE

Seals and Crofts, a pop music duo known for a number of hits in the 1970s, are reuniting after 10 years for one invitation-only performance at the Los Angeles Bahai Center on Thursday. The Bahai practitioners agreed to the concert as part of efforts to publicize a statement, “The Promise of World Peace,” that has been presented to world leaders since its approval several months ago by the international governing body of the world faith. Dash Crofts, now of Nashville, and Jimmy Seals, who lives in Costa Rica, have worked independently since 1979.