Banja Luka, November 7, 1998 (IKA/KTA) – The second regular meeting of the Roman Catholic bishops and Serbian Orthodox episcopes of Bosnia-Herzegovina was held on November 5 in Banja Luka. After the meeting, a statement was issued emphasizing that “the bishops and episcopes, having established the sorrowful fact that the return of refugees is being opposed by those who used the recent war for their own interest, discussed their duties and possibilities regarding the providing of assistance to refugees in order for them to return to their abandoned parishes … Deeply convinced that there is no happiness or God#!s blessing in exile, the bishops and episcopes call upon their priests and faithful to return to the places of their birth. They again urge the responsible international and domestic officials not to prevent but to facilitate their return,” emphasized the statement. The participants of the meeting have taken “the common position that it is not possible to acquiesce to plans for the dividing of the peoples and nations in these territories. According to official data, over 200,000 people have been killed and two million exiled. There has been great human suffering and misfortune. It has become obvious that the people mourn over graves less sorrowfully than they mourn for their lost homes, which is indicative of all the immorality and injustice of such plans.”
At the meeting, it was proposed for the bishops and episcopes to send their clergy a pastoral letter calling for ways and means of mutual assistance and Christian solidarity in all respects. In reference to the “difficult situation in which the priests and clergy find themselves, like all the people of this land, they concluded that the communities should demand from the government authorities in both entities that the legal status of the Churches should be established, as well as the status of the other religious communities.” The participants noted that on the eve of the Great Jubilee 2000, “the bishops and episcopes have appointed representatives of both Christian traditions to propose the manner and content for the joint celebration of this event of salvation.” They also pointed out how “the Jubilee obligates us to experience and profess the unity of Christians more deeply. The Jubilee is an additional obligation, but it is also an opportunity for the Church to invest all its forces in the correction of all the injustices that have been inflicted upon the people of these territories, regardless of their religious, national or any other affiliation.”
At this meeting, it was also decided that the next such meeting will be held in the spring in Sarajevo. The public statement was signed from the Catholic side by Archbishop Cardinal Vinko Puljić of Sarajevo, Bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka, Bishop Ratko Perić of Duvno-Mostar, Auxiliary Bishop Pero Sudar of Sarajevo, and from the Serbian Orthodox side by Metropolitan Nikolaj of Dabar-Bosnia, Episcope Vasilije of Zvornik-Tuzla, Episcope Jefrem of Banja Luka and Episcope Hrizostom of Bihac-Petrovac, while Episcope Atanasije of Zahumlje-Herzegovina was unable to attend.