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When Redeemer University College’s James Payton attended a conference recently in Macedonia, it was at the invitation of the Macedonian president himself.

Payton, a member of Ancaster (Ont.) Christian Reformed Church, was invited to the World Conference on Dialogue Among Religions and Civilizations because he has cultivated an understanding of Orthodox Christianity. “It’s very rare for a non-Orthodox professor to be invited to give lectures. We Protestants usually don’t understand the Orthodox very well,” said Payton.

Payton said the Macedonian government wants to avoid having civil war break out as it did in Bosnia, so it organized the event to encourage greater face-to-face dialogue between religious groups. Macedonia’s political atmosphere, where there is still difficulty between the country’s Slavs and Albanians, is tense. “There were lots of beefy guys with red ties and black suits. Security was intense,” Payton said.

The prime minister and the deputy prime minister participated in the conference, along with 167 delegates from outside Macedonia. “They weren’t politicians who were just going through photo ops. The prime minister laid out a very nuanced understanding of the dialogue between religions. We were impressed,” said Payton.

The conference brought together Roman Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and a variety of other church leaders in addition to Jewish and Muslim scholars. “Orthodox Christians could dialogue with Muslims. They could meet each other as people instead of as vague ‘others’ who have ‘strange ideas,’” Payton said.

At the end of the conference all participants endorsed a joint declaration promoting dialogue and condemning all forms of religious violence (see www.wcdarc-ohrid.org/).