Religious Actors In The Bosnian War

Religious actors had several important roles in the Bosnian war, some good and some bad. Many religious leaders from all three religious communities sought to find ways to end the violence, or to separate religious intention from the acts of creating “ethnically pure” nations. In 1995, for instance, the Croatian Conference of Bishops sought to repent for their ignorance toward the suffering of people other than their own - they agreed to perform penance and to “proclaim a uniform Christian attitude toward victims and toward the guilty” (72). There were several religious actors who spoke out against the violence, and deemed it unethical, yet as is described by Appleby, “None of the religious bodies had developed a notion for peacebuilding”