Visits to Theological Educational Institutions
The project has foreseen mutual visits of the students of theology faculties (the Orthodox Theology Faculty and the Faculty of Islamic Science) to their respective educational facilities. The students were given an opportunity to visit the premises (library, classrooms), to see the curricula, but also to meet the students and the teachers. The meeting was of high importance for the students who got acquainted with their colleagues from different religions, established mutual contacts and increased the mutual cooperation.

In the period 2003-2007 total of eight visits were organized covering 160 students.

The students evaluated the visits through questionnaires. One student noted it was positive that two different religions were looking for a key to open the gate of mutual co-existence. Another student from the Orthodox High School visiting the Islamic Faculty said: “I was surprised to hear that they also learn the Macedonian language. The premises are excellent and the subjects are interesting”. Another visitor of this Faculty said: “My impressions are positive since they have excellent studying conditions and I have learned many new things about the Islam”.

To the question “What was the most useful about the visit?”, the following answers were received: “The most useful thing is that I’ve become familiar with some of their customs”, “In general, the visit to the faculty and the high school was useful, since I as an Orthodox and Christian, (without visits of this type) I would have probably never had a chance to visit them”.

To the question “Do you consider this type of cooperation to be useful and necessary”, large percentage of the students gave positive answers. One of the respondents said: “In the end, the schools should cooperate, since we can learn a lot from each other and we can see that we do not have to be opponents, but we can be friends”.
 

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Acronyms:
MCIC – Macedonian Centre for International Cooperation
MOC – Macedonian Orthodox Church
OTF – Orthodox Theology Faculty
IRC – Islamic Religious Community
FIS – Faculty of Islamic Science
CC – Catholic Church
UMC – United Methodist Church
JCRM – Jewish Community in the Republic of Macedonia