wfn.org | U.S. Religious Leaders Meet Serbian Patriarch

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact:  NCC News, 212-870-2227
     Stephanie Gadlin, Rainbow/PUSH, 773-256-2758
E-mail: news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org

U.S. RELIGIOUS LEADERS MEET SERBIAN ORTHODOX PATRIARCH PAVLE
Group, Led by Joan Campbell and Jesse Jackson, 
Hopes to See Captured U.S. Soldiers Today

51NCC4/30/99 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, April 30 ---- The Serbian 
Orthodox Patriarch this morning warmly welcomed a delegation 
of U.S. Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders to Belgrade, 
and expressed his great appreciation for their humanitarian 
mission, which is expected to include a meeting later today 
with the three captured U.S. soldiers.

 The delegation arrived in Belgrade Thursday night, and 
is led by the Rev. Dr. Joan B. Campbell, General Secretary 
of the (U.S.) National Council of Churches, and the Rev. 
Jesse Jackson, Founder and President of the Rainbow/PUSH 
Coalition.  The group's first acts Friday included signing 
the three Bibles that are to be presented to the U.S. 
servicemen.

 The meeting with His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle, 
the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, was "quite cordial, 
with an interesting sense of history as well as currency," 
reported the Rev. Roy Lloyd, Broadcast News Director for the 
National Council of Churches who is traveling with the 
religious mission.  "We met in an ancient place with such 
history, yet talked about such current problems and things 
which derive from the new world and from modern technology."

 Dr. Campbell expressed concern "for all who are 
suffering, for Serbs and ethnic Albanians alike."  She 
brought the concerns and prayers of American religious 
leaders to their counterparts in Yugoslavia.  The Rev. 
Jackson set forth "points for peace," including stopping of 
all the violence in Kosovo, removing soldiers and having 
some sort of peacekeeping force to ensure the safety of 
Serbs and ethnic Albanians alike.  He commented how the 
religious community can provide an alternative in connecting 
people and perhaps bringing about discussions of peace in a 
way governments cannot do.

Dr. Campbell noted that the churches maintain relations 
even when their governments do not. "They understand the 
pain each other is experiencing," she said.  "That's why 
this mission to Yugoslavia is so important."  The Serbian 
Patriarch and U.S. religious leaders pledged cooperative 
work together on peace efforts and on trying to gain the 
release of the soldiers.

 Following the meeting with the Patriarch, the 
delegation went to view bomb damage, much of it from the 
night before.  Belgrade experienced heavy bombing by NATO 
forces overnight - and an earthquake.

 First, the delegation viewed damage at a monastery for 
women in a small valley "with, I understand, nothing of 
strategic significance in the area," the Rev. Lloyd 
reported. "So it would appear to be an accident. No one was 
injured but apparently there are still a couple of live 
bombs in the roof of the monastery."

Next, in central Belgrade, the group saw a home and 
adjoining restaurant that had been totally destroyed.  No 
one was killed.  When the bomb struck around 3:30 a.m. 
Friday, a young man was thrown from the building's second 
story onto a car below, suffering a broken leg.  

"Rev. Jackson spoke with woman who'd lived in the house 
and who detailed the terror she felt when the bomb struck 
unexpectedly," the Rev. Lloyd reported.  

"Dr. Campbell spoke with a woman who lived in the 
building and was trembling as she held a piece of the bomb 
in one hand.  Dr. Campbell said she was sorry for the 
anguish all were experiencing and offered a blessing.  The 
people who gathered around, curious to see the damage, were 
very cordial to the Americans and particularly to the 
religious leaders," he continued.  The delegation also saw 
the damage done earlier to the TV center - located behind a 
church with a children's center immediately adjacent.  Some 
17 people had died in that place.

"In all this," the Rev. Lloyd said,  "the delegation 
was concerned this not be used as propaganda but 
nevertheless there was acknowledgement of the damage that 
had occurred."

 As delegation members moved around town, they saw 
several signs sponsored by the Yugoslav government.  One was 
a take-off on the Nike ad: "Stop the bombing, just do it."  
Another showed an elaborately decorated egg, an Orthodox 
symbol of Easter, with the words "Christ is risen" across 
the top and, across the bottom, "They believe in bombs, we 
believe in God."  Commented the Rev. Lloyd, "We noted the 
irony of this former communist country doing its signs along 
that line."

 Besides Dr. Campbell and the Rev. Jackson, delegation 
members are: His Grace Bishop Dimitrios of Xanthos, 
Ecumenical Officer, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, 
New York; the Rev. Fr. Irinej Dobrijevic, Serbian Orthodox 
Priest, Cleveland, Ohio; Fr. Raymond G. Helmick, S.J., 
Boston College, Boston, Mass.; Zoran S. Hodjera, President, 
Saint Luke Serbian Orthodox Church, Washington, D.C.; Rabbi 
Steven Bennett Jacobs, Los Angeles, Calif.  Also, Dr. Nazir 
Uddin Khaja, M.D., Chairman and President, Board of the 
American Muslim Council, Los Angeles; the Rt. Rev. Leonid 
Kishkovsky, Ecumenical Officer, Orthodox Church in America, 
Syosset, N.Y.; Bishop Marshall L. Meadors, Jr., Mississippi 
Area, Southeastern Jurisdiction, United Methodist Church, 
Jackson, Miss.; the Rev. James Trent Meeks, Pastor, Salem 
Baptist Church, Chicago, Ill.; and His Grace Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Kodic Mitrophan, Bishop of Eastern America, Serbian Orthodox 
Church in the U.S.A. and Canada, Sewickley, Pa.

 Other participants include Congressman Rod Blagojevich, 
D-Ill., 5th District, Chicago; Landrum R. Bolling, Senior 
Advisor, Conflict Management Group, and Director at Large, 
Mercy Corps International, Cambridge, Mass.; Obrad Kesic, 
Director, Governmental Affairs, IGN Pharmaceuticals, 
Washington, D.C., and four staff (Rev. Lloyd; Marie Nelson 
and Yirgalem Tadesse with Rainbow/PUSH, and John Wyma with 
Cong. Blagojevich).

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