“Peace for All” is a video ethnography that documents the activities at a \u201cshared shrine\u201d in Macedonia on St. George\u2019s Day. The shrine is shared by Orthodox Christians and various Muslim denominations to celebrate the birth of their respective saints, St. George and H\u2019d\u2019r Baba. This shrine is officially recognized as the Orthodox shrine of St. Nicholas. However, throughout history both Muslims and Christians have claimed the shrine as their own. Therefore, both Christians and Muslims in Macedonia recognize the shrine as a sacred space.<\/p>\n
Today this shrine is shared by each of these religious communities, especially around May 6. In quick succession from May 5-7 every year, Orthodox Christians celebrate the birth of St. George and practitioners of three different Muslim denominations celebrate the birth of H\u2019d\u2019r Baba. As is evident in the documentary, several practices\u2014such as the exchange of colored eggs and the passing through of rosaries\u2014are shared across religious traditions.<\/p>\n
There is a lesson about religious peacebuilding to be found in the video. The lesson is this: people who share practices and spaces have the resources to coexist in a relatively peaceful manner in such a way as to embrace difference rather than promote surface unity. The model of interreligious life documented in Peace for All challenges those, often western, models of interreligious peacebuilding that focus on dialogue about religious beliefs and the promotion of shared values. The sharing of practices and spaces contributes resources to interreligious peacebuilding that dialogue is incapable of producing.<\/p>\n