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Fabric of the Balkan War: Religious Conflict In America's diverse culture, the notion of a civil war charged with religious conflict is hard to grasp. But religious identity is present constantly in the antagonisms that have fragmented the Balkans for centuries -- setting neighbor against neighbor, Muslims against Orthodox Christians, and Orthodox Christians against Western Christians, who are represented, at least symbolically in the current conflict, by NATO. More than anywhere else in Europe, religion …

…Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity -- are not inherently at odds, said Paul Mojzes, a professor of religion at Rosemont College near Philadelphia, who grew up in Yugoslavia. "But the Catholics fought the Orthodox, each claiming they alone had the key to the kingdom of God, and the Muslims fought them both," Mojzes said. "[Everyone is] afraid of their neighbors because their neighbors, in the past, have one way or another taken advantage of them."