"There are a lot of people in this country who are into dialogue, education, getting to know one another, trying to live together," says Rabbi Ron Kronish, director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Jerusalem.

“Only with people, with community” will the Holy Land remain holy, says Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the region’s Roman Catholic leader. But the number of Christians in Israel and the West Bank is declining at an alarming rate.

Watch more of Kim Lawton’s interviews about the diminishing numbers of Christians in the Holy Land and the complicated—sometimes controversial—efforts to support them.

At a meeting in London’s historic Lambeth Palace, top Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders launched a new effort to support Christians in the Holy Land. "Have these people a future in their ancestral home? We hope and pray that they do,” says Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Watch more from participants in this week’s conference at London’s Lambeth Palace about the situation of Christians in the Holy Land and how people of faith around the world can help work for Middle East peace.

As Mideast turmoil spreads, a professor of international affairs says we are witnessing changing interpretations of religion and "a struggle over which interpretations have authority over whom."

"If there is a new state, presumably there will be more religious tolerance," says Middle East author and analyst Geneive Abdo. "We can only hope so."

"Many people are hoping there will be a more pluralistic government that will embrace the Christian Copts," says Qamar-ul Huda, a senior program officer at the US Institute of Peace.

"The most broadly based access to the developing world is through religious people," says the former president of the World Bank, "and so it is a tragedy if they are not embraced in the overall development process."

Look back at excerpts from our conversations with reporters over the past 10 years on religion and its changing role in the world.