I believe that religious conflicts are more difficult to resolve nonviolently than many other types of conflicts because many people cling dogmatically to their beliefs and are seldom willing to compromise. The most noteworthy of these religious conflicts spanned four-hundred years (from the eleventh to the fifteenth century) and were known as the Crusades. The Crusades were expeditions undertaken, in fulfillment of a solemn vow, to deliver the Christian Holy Places from Mohammedan tyranny (New Advent). This conflict resulted in open and sporadic warfare that ended without a peaceful resolution. Since those holy wars, Christians and Mohammedans have never coexisted peacefully.
As history progressed, the Reformation came to Europe in the sixteenth century. This religious movement splintered the Catholic faith and brought the people of Europe in direct conflict with each other. England and many of the northern Germanic states became Protestant while France, Ireland and many of the southern Germanic states remained Catholic. Where Catholics were the majority, Protestants were persecuted; where Protestants were in control Catholics were maltreated.
Remnants of this conflict still linger in Ireland where Protestant North Ireland has fought against Catholic Ireland for many years. While present peace talks are working to resolve this dispute, the Irish conflict can trace its long and bloody past back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The fact that a peaceful resolution is reconciling Ireland and North Ireland provides hope that such tactics will work to resolve similar religious disputes all over the world.
Additionally, these religious conflicts have caused much individual persecution. For example, in the fifteenth century Antonio Dominius was killed by the Inquisition for his experiments into the properties of light, and Giordano Bruno, an early supporter of Copernicus's theory, is commonly believed t...