Dialogue of Religions – Dialogue of Ethnicities

“Trust” and “dialogue” are the key terms that the religious communities in the Balkans have to build on in order to strengthen their role in society. All efforts have to be made in order to build trust through dialogue among the religious communities, but also between the religious institutions and the state and society. This was the outcome of a two-day event organized by the KAS on 18-19 September in Skopje, which was attended by the Heads of the Orthodox, Islamic, Catholic, Evangelical-Methodist and the representative of the Jewish religious communities in Macedonia and representatives of the Catholic and Islamic religious communities and the new Head of the Inter-Religious Institute in Bosnia-Hercegovina, as well as by Baba Edmond Brahimaj of the Headquarters of the Bektashian community and Bishop Homeyer of Hildesheim. It was the first of its kind in such a high-ranking and international format, which led to a lively and constructive exchange of experiences in inter-religious dialogue in Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Germany, and a sharing of “lessons learnt”. At the end of the discussion it was noted that inter-religious dialogue in the Balkans has made significant progress and can pose as a model for the communication between different religious communities in other European countries as well.