Religious Conflicts in the World: Causes and Possible Solutions

Abstract

The content of the book is comprised of the papers presented at the First World Conference for Religious Dialogue and Cooperation, held in Struga (North Macedonia) in October 2023. The theme of the Conference was “Religious Conflicts in the World: Causes and Possible Solutions”. The Conference featured eminent professors and researchers from Serbia, the United States of America, Finland, Romania, the Netherlands, Oman, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Belgium, Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Switzerland, France, India, Malta, Australia, Azerbaijan, North Macedonia and Ukraine. When we commenced this story four years ago (First European Conference for Religious Dialogue and Cooperation), we were in a state of uncertainty as to whether it would receive positive approval from scientific circles in Europe and the world. Today we see that we have essentially established ourselves in all relevant global academic, scientific and research institutions dealing with religion. Without false modesty, the World Conference on Religious Dialogue and Cooperation has grown into one of the most important scientific events dealing with all aspects of the complex phenomenon of religion in the world. As the editor of this book, I have selected papers that best illustrate the relationship between causes and possible solutions of religious conflicts in modern societies, primarily from a sociological, historical, anthropological, psychological, philosophical and theological point of view. Our aim is to determine the crucial reasons for the outbreak of numerous conflicts in the world that have a religious background. Based on that, we offer resolutions to conflict reconciliation, using religion as the most significant factor of building peace.