All ENS material may be reproduced without permission. Please credit Episcopal News Service . All church leaders forcefully condemn any violence, intimidation, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of the civilian population in Kosovo, and support calls for a negotiated and peaceful resolution to the conflict. Orthodox patriarch urges peace Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle, who lived in the Kosovo region for 34 years, met with the delegation and repeated his condemnation of war and violence, repeating his public appeals for the end of all military actions by all sides, for the guaranteed return of all civilians to their homes, and a solution that encourages peaceful coexistence.
All war is evil but civil war is doubly evil as it provokes neighbor to fight neighbor.
The Serbian church leaders support cantonisation of the province within a democratic and federal Yugoslavia with guarantees for all ethnic and national groups. As these positions have been articulated over the past two years they have drawn stiff criticism from the Yugoslav political leadership. The NATO bombing has decreased the possibility of a peaceful political solution, the Orthodox leaders said. While admitting that Yugoslavia has many problems, they argued that it was still the most open country in the communist system. Western policy towards Yugoslavia has now produced the greatest anti-Western factor in Europe.