Three imams from Bijelo Polje, near Mostar, visited the local Orthodox Christian vicar to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid, locally called Bayram, together with him on Sunday.

The Imam of the Kuti-Livac prayer community, Ensar Vila, told media that he and his colleagues also recently visited the vicar, Nebojsa Radic, to celebrate a Christian Orthodox Serb holiday, called Slava, and that they now wanted to share the joy of Eid with him and their Orthodox neighbours.

“We didn't have the possibility to organise our traditional Bayram reception so we decided to share our joy of Bayram with Nebojsa this way. Bayram is there for us all to be joyful, including our neighbours of other religions,” Vila said.

Imam Ammar Copelj added that it is nice to meet with the vicar again after several months during which they could not meet due to the pandemic.

“It is important that we share the joy of Bayram with our neighbours, especially after all the restrictions that are now behind us,” he said.

Radic said he was happy about the visit.

“We are building a community and our life together for a long time now. They are always welcome, and so are we when we visit them. Society is very corrupt and I believe that this is the right message as only in this way can we build love and coexistence,” he said.

“Today is a great joy for the believers of the Islamic religion, but also for us because we share the joy of all of our holidays,” said Radic.