The Church of Greece supported materially and morally the Bosnian Serb leadership in the Bosnian War. Its approach was linked to Greek foreign policy of the early 1990s that aspired to the creation of an "Orthodox arc" between Orthodox states in the Balkans, although the policy changed after 1995. Christodoulos of Athens after his election as Archbishop of Greece in 1998 used sermons to criticise NATO and western actions during the Kosovo War. The Church leadership along with elements of Greek society espousing traditional and anti-European Union views had attempted to leverage their influence to steer Greek state policy toward a pro-Serbian/Yugoslav direction. On March 1995, a unit of 100 Greek volunteers that came to be known as the Greek Volunteer Guard was formed in support of the Army of the Republika Srpska at the request of Ratko Mladić. Golden Dawn members also joined Serbian paramilitary groups and were participants of the Srebrenica massacre. The Greek Volunteer Guard found a positive response in public reaction in Greece.