Can Interreligious Dialogue Make a Difference
2008; Duquesne University Press; Volume: 43; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2162-3937
Autores Tópico(s)Religion and Society Interactions
ResumoWhenever I am asked the question, Does the interreligious dialogue you are always talking about ever really make any difference? I answer with a resounding, Yes! and proceed to tell him (it's always a he) about Macedonia. We were holding our then latest Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue (started in 1978--ten scholars from each religion from around the world participated) in Jakarta, Indonesia, in February, 2000, at the Presidential Palace when my friend and close colleague Paul Mojzes (born in Yugoslavia) received an overseas phone call from Boris Trajkovski, the new President of Macedonia--the then newest of the independent republics from former Yugoslavia. He told Paul that he had read about our Trialogue in Indonesia and asked whether we could come to his country next, since they desperately needed help, which he hoped we might be able to provide. In fact, Macedonia was falling into civil war. The large majority--perhaps 70%--of the population was Christian Orthodox, but a sizeable minority--perhaps 27%--was Muslim. Most of the Orthodox were ethnically Slavic, and most of the Muslims were Albanian. The religions, especially the two large ones, were more part of the problem rather than the solution, for over the centuries they had never spoken with each other, only at each other, and then almost always in accusatory tones. And that was very much the case in 2000! They frequently added fuel to the fire. With the help of President Trajkovski, Paul and I visited Skopje, the capital of Macedonia, in June, 2001, to meet with the President and the leaders of the five recognized religious communities: Orthodoxy, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, and Judaism. The most difficult to persuade to support a Trialogue were the Orthodox, for they had the most to lose, but we were eventually able to get all to agree to a Jewish-Christian-Muslim Trialogue, scheduled for November, 2001. Later that summer of 2001, however, the political and military situation deteriorated so badly that the Trialogue had to be postponed. After intervention by NATO troops that fall, Paul and I visited Skopje again and once more had to convince all the religious leaders to proceed with the Trialogue, then set for May, 2002. We hoped that we could 1) draw a dozen or more Macedonian clergy to attend the Trialogue, and 2) persuade the Orthodox and Islamic theological seminaries to allow us to bring a team of one Jewish, one Christian, and one Muslim scholar to lecture at each of their seminaries. As the time for the Trialogue grew closer and the local religious leaders, especially the Orthodox and the Muslim, saw that significant international attention would be focused on this event and their country, they encouraged their clergy to come to the Trialogue, and as a result over 100 attended all four days. An even more dramatic development took place when Paul and I received a response on the weekend during the Trialogue to our request to send a team of three from the Trialogue to lecture at the Orthodox seminary. They asked us whether we could bring the whole Trialogue from the hotel to their seminary the next day, Monday, and asked the Dean of the Islamic seminary to give a lecture at the same time. We quickly recovered from our astonishment and said that we would have to ask the Dean of the Islamic seminary. When we asked him, he said that we would lecture at the Orthodox seminary--if the Trialogue would come to his seminary on Tuesday, and the Dean of the Orthodox seminary would give a lecture at his seminary! Miracles happen! And so we had a handshake between the two Deans at the Orthodox and Islamic seminaries, much like the earlier handshake of Rabin and Arafat on the lawn of the White House. But the miracles did not stop there. Late Monday might the leadership of the Trialogue was suddenly invited to a midnight dinner at the Orthodox Metropolitan's palace, at which a tripartite commitment was hammered out: 1) to establish a Council on Interreligious Cooperation appointed by the respective heads of communities; 2) for the heads of the religious communities, particularly the Orthodox and Islamic, to meet three or four times a year to discuss issues between the communities; and 3) for the Orthodox and Islamic theological schools to begin cooperating in teaching students about each other's religion. …
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