Given their shared hardships, it stands to reason that Christians and Muslims in the Crimea should help each other. Some, however, might balk at such cooperation.

Last March, Archbishop Ievstratii (Zoria) of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Kyiv Patriarchate reported that Crimean Tatars had offered to let the Orthodox use their mosques for religious services in case they were expelled from their churches. Was this just an instance of individual generosity, occasioned by the extraordinary circumstance of the Russian invasion, or is there a prospect of lasting cooperation between Christians and Muslims?

Russian annexation of the Crimea means that Russian laws and policies will be imposed there. Russian authorities have long been persecuting certain Muslim and non-Orthodox Christian groups, accusing them of “extremism.” In the Russian-occupied Crimea, both Muslims and Christians have experienced harassment since the invasion last March. In a letter of August 21, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Major Archbishop Sviatoslav (Shevchuk) stated that churches and religious communities in occupied territories had suffered discrimination and outright violence. In the Crimea, he noted, the Muslim Tatars had suffered the most, living in daily danger. Some of its leaders had been exiled. Greek and Roman Catholic ministries, Orthodox parishes of the Kyivan Patriarchate, and the Jewish community had been menaced.

Forum 18, a religious liberty watch group based in Oslo, has provided the details of several such instances of mistreatment of both Christians and Muslims.(Felix Corley, Crimea: Raids, violence, threats – but what protection do victims get? Forum 18 News Service, 26 June 2014.)

Given their shared hardships, it stands to reason that Christians and Muslims in the Crimea should help each other. Some, however, might balk at such cooperation. They might point to the terrible and widespread persecution of Christians around the world by Islamicist militants such as ISIS. Or they might point to a country like Egypt, where according to CNEWA, since July of last year extremists have attacked 65 churches and monasteries, 104 Christian businesses, and 58 Christian homes.

Islamism, however, is not the same as Islam. Every faith has its radicals; every religion can be made intolerant. Moreover, Islam has no unified system of doctrine. The overwhelming majority of Muslims and Christians respect and tolerate each other. Still, some will point out that Islam is not separable from state authority in the manner that Christianity can be separated from secular government, and that Islamic states often persecute Christians. That is so; yet for centuries the Ottoman Empire, though certainly Muslim, permitted Christian communities to live in self-governing, self-adjudicating enclaves under the millet system. Intolerance is not built into Islam.

In fact, scholars point to passages in the Qur’an referring to Christians, sometimes favorably, as “People of the Book” (‘Ahl al-Kitab) (see especially sura 3.64, 3.113-3.115, 3.199, 5.82, 29.46, and 57.27). On the Christian side,such tolerance and respect have been codified in the documents of the Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council. The declaration on non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate (October 28, 1965), states at no.3 that“The Church regards with esteem also the Muslims.” It points out that they worship one God and submit to Him as did Abraham, through whom they are linked with Christians as well as Jews. Though Muslims do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere him as a prophet and honor Mary, his virgin mother. Like Christians, they await the judgment day and the resurrection of the dead. Like Christians, they emphasize personal morality, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. In Nostra Aetate, the Council urges Christians and Muslims “to work sincerely for mutual understanding” and to preserve and promote “social justice and moral welfare, as well as peace and freedom.”

Christian-Muslim cooperation is not only a matter of official declarations or scholarly interpretations of sacred texts. It is a concrete reality with practical consequences. In 1994, MagdiAllam of the Italian daily La Repubblica reported that the Holy See had decided to cooperate with Islamic countries in opposing provisions of the United Nations document on population and development pertaining to abortion and artificial birth control. Vatican officials and representatives of Islamic organizations forged a common front in defense of the family and the sanctity of human life, in the face of secularism, consumerism, and hyper-individualism.

The contrast between the traditional values of Christians and Muslims on the one hand, and the secularist lifestyle being propagated around the world by economic and political elites on the other, can be observed in many societies. Indeed, there are striking parallels between the lives of ordinary Muslims and the way of life that Christians once universally observed: prayer several times a day, a major annual fast, pilgrimage, charity, chastity, modesty in dress and comportment, and an emphasis on family and community.

In fact, in 2012 UGCC Major Archbishop Sviatoslav, asked whether there was anything that Christians could learn from Muslims, noted three things: (1) uncompromising opposition to the secularization of society, (2)unwavering courage to live according to one’s faith, and (3) refusal to compromise with evil. (Sivach, 30 September 2012, p. 8).

Whether in the halls of the United Nations or at a simple mosque in the Crimea, Christians and Muslims can and do work together. In the face of foreign invasion and occupation, this is not just a matter of idealism, but of survival.