wfn.org | Macedonian president to receive Methodist peace award

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

July 8, 2002        News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-21-71BP{286}

NOTE: Photographs and a sidebar, UMNS story #287, are available with this
report.

By United Methodist News Service

The president of the Republic of Macedonia will receive the 2002 World
Methodist Peace Award.

The World Methodist Council, which has presented the award annually since
1977, will honor Boris Trajkovski in Oslo, Norway, when its executive
committee meets there in September. Past peace award recipients include
Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and Mikhail Gorbachev. In
announcing the award, the council cited Trajkovski's efforts to bring
economic stability and peace to his European country.

He is a lay preacher and active member of the small United Methodist
community in Macedonia, often assisting in services at his church in Skopje,
according to the Rev. Peter Siegfried, an executive with the United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

Trajkovski's vision of a united country, with both Macedonians and Albanians
living in peace, helped him win the Albanian vote in the 1999 elections,
Siegfried noted. Trajkovski also played a crucial role in pushing
Macedonia's Parliament to approve a new constitution that recognizes the
Albanian minority as well as the main non-Orthodox religious groups. Those
groups include Roman Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Methodists.

The 46-year-old formerly served as deputy minister of foreign affairs for
Macedonia. He received a law degree from the University of St. Cyril and
Methodius in Skopje in 1980 and had specialized in commercial and employment
law. He and his wife, Vilma, employed by the National Bank of the Republic
of Macedonia, have two children.

During the past 12 years, Trajkovski has participated in international
conferences involving conflict resolution, religious tolerance and religious
freedom. According to his official biography, he is committed to improving
relations and cooperation between Macedonia and other countries.

Criteria for the World Methodist Peace Award include courage, relating
either to physical danger or putting one's personal interests at risk;
creativity, such as promoting new initiatives or new grounds for
negotiations in the peace process; and consistency in sustaining that effort
despite disappointments and setbacks.

An example of Trajkovski's commitment to peace and interreligious
understanding occurred in May, when more than 40 international scholars and
nearly 50 local scholars representing the Muslim, Jewish and Christian
faiths met in Skopje for a "trialogue." The president had met the two
professors, Leonard Swidler of Temple University and Paul Mojzes of
Rosemount College, who founded what has become known as the International
Scholars Annual Trialogue, and invited them to come to Macedonia.

The event's primary financial sponsor was the United States Institute of
Peace. The Board of Global Ministries also contributed $5,000 for the
meeting.

Conference participants spent one morning each at the Orthodox theological
seminary and Muslim seminary, and the two deans made a commitment for
cooperation between the two schools, according to Siegfried. Religious
leaders in Macedonia also agreed to create a Council on Interreligious
Cooperation, and the heads of the five religious communities pledged to meet
on a quarterly basis. Smaller groups of Jews, Catholics and United
Methodists were very much involved in the meeting and given opportunities to
speak about their own beliefs.

Siegfried was part of a conference delegation that met with Trajkovski
following the event. He noted the "high respect" accorded each religious
group during the conference. "I have the strong impression that this
trialogue has become an important challenge for new steps for the religious
communities in their contributions for peace in Macedonia," he said.

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United Methodist News Service
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