Sunday, April 4, 1999 Published at 22:30 GMT 23:30 UK
'Pray for peace'
John Paul II blesses crowds during his appeal for peace
On the most important day in the Christian year, church leaders addressed the Kosovo crisis in their Easter Day messages.
They urged people to pray for peace and to support the aid appeals.
In Rome, Pope John Paul II criticised the Nato bombing and called on the Yugoslav government to create a humanitarian corridor to speed up relief supplies for the refugees.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, defended the air strikes and said equivalent efforts should be made to help those fleeing Kosovo.
He had already voiced his concern about the conflict in the Balkans on Good Friday, when he described the killing in Kosovo as an insult to Jesus Christ.
At the start of Mass, a participant on the altar read a special prayer. "We pray so that in the Balkans, with good will from both sides, the weapons will fall silent and negotiations are re-started aimed at a true and lasting peace."
During his Easter message, following late-morning Mass in St Peter's Square, the Pope expressed his dismay at the situation in Kosovo.
He urged the Yugoslav authorities to help the refugees: "On this holy day I feel duty-bound to make a heartfelt appeal to the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, to allow a humanitarian corridor to be opened in order for help to be brought to the mass of people gathered at the border of Kosovo," he said.
The Pope sent his Foreign Minister, Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, to Belgrade on Thursday to urge all sides in the conflict to observe a truce from the Western Christian Easter on 4 April until the Eastern Orthodox Easter on 11 April.