The Church of Ireland Primate, Archbishop Robin Eames, today called on loyalist and republican paramilitaries to abandon violence forever.
Dr Eames told the Church of Ireland General Synod in Dublin that paramilitaries still maintained a "corrosive power" of threats to public safety.
"We may have moved beyond the constant weekly atrocities but the power of threat remains," he said.
"Yet society is not completely powerless in this respect. Society has shown it wants to turn its back on 'those dark days' of the past. But the corridor of fear remains where paramilitaries engage in drug trafficking, protection rackets and punishment beatings," he said.
Dr Eames acknowledged that many working class nationalist and unionist areas had suffered years of deprivation and neglect and had been failed by politicians. "There is naked sectarianism on the streets but there is also benign sectarianism far beyond interface areas," he said.
However, Dr Eames said there was also a new order taking hold in Northern Ireland society with bridge building occurring in local communities.
He urged Protestants to move away from the "siege mentality" and said Catholic communities need to recognise that theyare no longer "second class citizens".