Bishop Grigorije of the Serbian Orthodox Church wrote a story about the vow with mufti Salem Dedovic. As he said, they were aware of how little or nothing they knew about each other.

Below is the translation of the entire text bishop Grigorije wrote for the Top Portal:

I have known mufti Dedovic since the time when he was the Imam of Mostar. We met in Blagaj, at the springo f the Buna river, in a dervish tekke. And I was glad that we met in such a place. The water at the springs is always the purest, and so we yearn for the springs, which are forgotten and lost. The mufti's and my crystal clear source is faith in God, which always refreshes everything, makes everything new.

When we met at that emerald green source of our Buna, it was immediately clear to me that he was such a man. Pure and true Abrahamic faith, the one that leads to the constant repetition of beneficial cathartic moments through refreshment. Since that time, the Imam and later mufti Dedovic and I immediately knew what to do: make peace!

Both the mufti and I knew that both peace and reconciliation in our country are usually reduced to tedious and deceitful phrases that come out of the mouths of those who would like peace to never happen and who most often offer toxic malice through reconciliation. Peace and reconciliation are impossible without true empathy, without true coexistence with other human beings, with sincere rejoicing with those who rejoice, with sincere sorrow with those who weep. And we also knew that this is not achieved only through respect for the dead, here in Herzegovina they are most often martyrs of the insane fraternal murder. (The Bosnian war of 1992-1995 is often described as a war in which brothers turned against each other)

Mufti Dedovic and I were aware of how little and in fact how we knew nothing about each other. Not only about the history of our coexistence, because it was far longer and more lasting than the moments when, due to our ignorance, we became subject to manipulations of perverts (villains) and attacked each other, but also about what we say we believe. How many Orthodox know what Muslims believe, how many Muslims know what Orthodox believe? What do they cultivate awe of, what is most sacred to them, what do they breathe for, what do they rejoice in, what do they cry for, are they people, or are they “those over there”, “the others”?

Without that knowledge and insight, the bitterness in people cant be cleansed by the water from a pure spring, the one where the mufti and I found each other. Although I am an Orthodox bishop, I often think about those parts of the Qur'an that describe people who say they believe in God and the hereafter, but in fact try to unknowingly deceive both God and those who believe, deceiving themselves, or those who delight people with their words and call on God as a witness to their benevolence, but as soon as they reach any position they turn the world into hell.

Those words, like everything from our Abrahamic heritage, are terrifying and admonishing because it turns out that deceiving yourself is even easier than deceiving others, and the price to pay is enormous. Mufti Dedovic and I understood that. And that this cant be done without returning to our source. And we are so happy that in our country, our Herzegovina, God has given us such a living symbol of that return as the spring of Buna, where we first met.

Reading about the origin of the tekke on the Buna, I discovered an interesting story about its origin, about an old man with a white beard, who rode through the bazaar and went to the spring and how everyone thought he was a guest, but as Buna rose so far that it was impossible to cross it on horseback that night, they concluded that it was a ‘good man’ (saint) and that is why a tekke should be erected in that place. There are so many similarities in this story with our stories about Saint Sava, who walks the earth and teaches people the saving message of how to be better. Regardless of the fact that these are legends, without any historical foundation, they speak of how much our entire nation, and I will intentionally not say peoples, experienced the epiphanies of what is sacred in a similar way and how much its joys are similar. We can and must rejoice together. This is the vow my friend, mufti Salem Dedovic and I took.