Do ethnic tensions also play a role in the dialogue between the churches?
Naturally, because people are the way they are. For example nowadays at ecumenical discussions it is far easier to bring Uniate and Orthodox Romanians together than Uniate Catholics and Latin Catholics from Transylvania. For the Latin Catholics are Hungarians and they don’t want to have much to do with the Romanians. There is nothing to be done about this. And are there also historical reasons for this conflict? Under communism ethnic conflicts were not solved but were brushed under the carpet and the carpet was then held in place with a lot of political pressure, above all in former Yugoslavia. Under Tito ethnic conflicts were not allowed. But when he died everything came to the surface again, and eventually led to war. The Serbian Orthodox Church supported Slobodan Milošević’s nationalism. And today, in the case of the Kosovo conflict it pours oil on the flames. To understand Serbian Orthodoxy, again we have to go back in history. After the decline of the Serbian state in the 15th ce
