Peace Building Through Religious Education: A Post-Communist Country Perspective

Public awareness on perceiving religious dialogue as a determinant of conflict prevention and social peace building in intercultural and multi-religious societies is increasing day by day. For a long time, the debate over religion was characterized by the idea that the increasing secularism of Western societies would lead to a gradual withdrawal of religion from public space. However, the last decade, returned religion in public discussion as a determinant of peace building. Regardless of the variety of how this discussion unfolds in European countries, the study of the impact of "religion" on intercultural dialogue and on tensions and social conflicts seems to be becoming increasingly important. Meanwhile education and religious education is an important element for shaping the critical skills of future citizens, for intercultural dialogue and for peace building as well. This research focuses on assessing the peace building contribution of religious education in Albaniaa multi religious society, in two different periods of time, the pre-communist era and the post-communist regime. An explorative research methodology is implemented to achieve this aim through collecting primary and secondary data. Documents and studies in the field of religious education were collected from Central State Archive for the pre-communist period and data from the current schools of different religious communities in Albania were evaluated. The study brings to attention the Albanian case, where religious education had in the past and has currently a decisive impact on peace building. Religious communities have dozens of schools and 4 universities, where thousands of students’ study and their graduates constitute a vital part of the society. Education plays an essential role in intercultural understanding, in favour of coexistence and tolerance and the contribution of these schools to society is enormous asthey are strengthening interfaith dialogue and its transmission to young people. In addition to the collaboration between the three theologies, cooperation is also increasing between universities, which despite being founded by religious communities, have in general and other secular departments of various academic fields.