"Before, our nations have been facing on the battlefield, and today they meet in the prayer room!"
By God's providence, more than by my own will, on Friday I ended up at the Balkan call, the seventh international meeting of prayer for peace in the Balkan countries. On that day, 500 participants from 32 countries gathered in Zagreb to praise the Lord and pray for peace. The Balkans have been soaked in blood for centuries, the blood of the innocent and the guilty ones. Since the Croats have settled in this area, there has been a lot of wars. Not by our will. We are not a conquering nation. We are more of a "just let me be" people. After all, why should we conquer others if what God has already given us is infinitely more beautiful than anything others could give us? We don't need anything from someone else, but we will defend what belongs to us, to the death!
FOTO: HeritageCroatia
And so the wars continued for centuries. Lives have been lost, states changed, religions trampled each other, streams of blood flowed through the land…and here we are in 2023! Nations scarred by trauma and people with inherited hatreds shape our world, dictate our relationships and tell us who we are. Somehow we are involved in hatreds that are not ours at all, that we simply inherited.
Balkan call is God's call to pray for peace in the Balkans. So far, it has been held in six countries: North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey, and several prayer meetings have been held at the borders as well, namely on the border between Greece, North Macedonia and Albania in 2018, 2021, and again in April 2023. Knowing this, one has to wonder if prayer can achieve what politics, wars and all diplomatic efforts in history have failed to do? Can one Lord's Prayer or Hail Mary (or many of them) erase the centuries-old hatred that has been transmitted for generations in these areas? Can prayer heal the wounds that our grandfathers' grandfathers received and that we have accepted without having any part or say in it? Before this meeting, I would have said: no. Categorically no! It is too deep to be resolved with one beautiful prayer, even if it is said sincerely, from the depths of the soul, from the depths of the heart. No way!
FOTO: HeritageCroatia
And then came Saturday. At the beginning of the program, a band from Serbia has been announced. I have rolled my eyes, as I usually do when our neighbours are mentioned. As Nathanael asked Jesus: "Can anything good come from Nazareth?", so I always think: "Can anything good come from Serbia?" The anniversary of the fall of Vukovar has just passed, and the candles we lit in memory to the victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja are still up there in Vukovarska Street in Split. The wounds are still fresh…
When the band has finished, the representative of Serbia appeared in front of the audience, and with him two young guys about 15 years old. He then asked all Croats to stand up. I have remained seated, of course. He said that he wants to bless Croatia and the Croatian people, and has began his presentation with the statement: "If I had been just a year older in 1991, I would have been at that war. I would be in Vukovar and I would be forced to go to the war against Croatia." That's where he has got my attention. I remained seated, listening intently to what he was going to say next. "I would like to ask you who are here from Serbia to support me in this, and before I say the blessing, I would like to apologize and ask for forgiveness. I don't want to make a show here, but allow me to kneel down in a front of you with a humble heart and ask for your forgiveness. Brothers and sisters from Croatia, I am asking you for the sake of God, for the sake of our relations, for the sake of the young generation, which has not sinned against anything, to forgive us for all that we have sinned against you! My heart also cries and I ask you for forgiveness for Vukovar and Škabrnja. I feel sorry for Zadar and for the corps from Novi Sad that bombed it. It's a team from my area... I ask with humble heart that you forgive us and free us from this sin. Let me say a blessing along with these guys. I have two things on my heart: the Church and politics." My heart sank, tears flowed uncontrollably, but I remained seated. And he continues: "We are sorry for everything that our fathers did to each other. I am asking you, Lord, to bless the Croatian Churches, for unity, I am asking you to send down the Holy Spirit so that the Church in Croatia walks in the authority that you have given it. Likewise, Lord, I pray that the victory from the prayers of the Church will spill over into the physical world, into politics, into the everyday life of Croats, and I pray that peace and understanding will enter the hearts of our politicians. Please let us see the politicians of Croatia and Serbia be together as friends. I bless Croatia with every blessing in Jesus' name. Amen!"
FOTO: HeritageCroatia
While I have been taking out a paper tissue and pretending that nothing had happened, the representative of Croatia has come on stage and asked all the Serbs in the room to stand up, in order to give them a blessing on behalf of the Croats. He said that he has not been sure whether he should speak on behalf of the Croatian people, ask for forgiveness and give a blessing to the Serbian people, so he went to the Upper Room to pray for a sign. When he has entered the prayer room, there has been no one in it, but shortly after that, two young guys have come, followed by another girl. Those two young men were exactly these two lads who have been brought on stage by the representative of Serbia. So he stated: "Before, our nations have been facing on the battlefield, and today they meet in the prayer room!" After that, he gave a blessing to the Serbian people in the name of the Croatian people, especially praying for their Church and their young ones to be a light in Serbia, to be a light in the nation! He has especially prayed for young people who will not discriminate and make differences between nations and who will live for God!
FOTO: HeritageCroatia
After that, the representatives of Albania, Kosovo, Romania, Greece, Macedonia, Montenegro and Armenia have all took turns on the stage. They have been talking about Israel and the current conflict in the Middle East. There was call for prayer for peace, for prayer for all nations: both Jews and the Muslim countries that surround them. They have prayed for the Church in the Middle East, emphasizing that the individual opinion on the issue of the Israeli conflict is not important. The only thing that matters is what God says about it.
The appearance of the representative of Kosovo, whose father as a young man has been sent to Pula to serve his military service, was particularly interesting. Namely, he has met Jesus there and returned to Kosovo converted. He is the first converted Christian in Kosovo! Then his uncle has gone to Zadar to serve military service as well and surrendered his life to Christ there, in 1985. When blessed the Croatian people, the representative of Kosovo invoked the blessing of Abraham so that the Croats could be a blessing to other nations and that all people who come to Croatia, even as tourists, would find Jesus in Croatia! He prayed that many nations would be converted with the help of the Croatian people and the Croatian Church. "God is preparing Croatia for a great harvest! God bless Croatia!" he finished his prayer.
FOTO: HeritageCroatia
Have I got up at the end? Of course I haven't. It's not that easy for me… But listening to the blessing of the representative of Serbia, for the first time in my life I thought that the peace maybe is possible. As well as forgiveness. But forgiveness does not come from minds and will not be won by politics or diplomacy. Forgiveness comes from our hearts. Starting with the fact that all of us Christians are brothers and sisters in Christ, our commandment is love, not hate! It transcends all worldly commandments and loyalty to a nation. It binds us, despite all our national, traditional or human differences. It is the only principle and foundation of the Christian life. I have been thinking, who knows, maybe next time I will get up!