Humanitarian Work of Religious Communities as the Basis of the Practice of Social Care in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Abstract

The article discusses the contribution of the humanitarian activities of the most represented religious communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to the development of the practice of social care and social support. The influence of the social teachings of the Catholic, Orthodox, and Islamic religious communities, whose ideological foundations are found in the Bible and the Qur'an, is considered. The article provides an overview of the historical conditioning of the practice of social activities of religious communities, with a special focus on the periods when the state's response to the difficulties of citizens' lives was weak and when space was left for religious communities to engage and practice in the areas of protection and support for socially sensitive groups of the population. Solidarity and voluntariness were the ideological foundations, and charity was the mechanism for practicing the social protection function of religious communities in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the past but also today. The article ends with the message that the area of social activism and charitable work of religious communities is an area of better interreligious and interethnic understanding and cooperation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.