ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Central and Eastern Europe presented one of the richest mosaics of religions in the world, being a region where the three Abrahamic religions co-existed and all major forms of Christianity – Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant – had a marked presence. However, as John Connelly’s chapter shows, Central and Eastern European history in the twentieth century was characterized not only by policies of ‘ethnic cleansing’, but often by similarly brutal processes of religious homogenization as well. Connelly paints a panorama of inter-religious perceptions in the twentieth century in his chapter, analyzing various intellectual responses to inter-religious conflict and violence in particular. The ultimate aim of the chapter is to compare the transformation of Jewish-Christian, Christian-Muslim and Muslim-Jewish relations within Central and Eastern Europe with their evolution in the wider world.
