WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Rep. Tony Hall returned to his old Capitol Hill stomping grounds Thursday to announce an ambitious goal: uniting religious leaders to help bring peace to the Middle East.

Under an initiative launched by Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., Hall's best friend in Congress, Hall, who served as Ohio's 3rd District congressman from 1979 to 2002, will lead an effort to unite Muslims, Christians and Jews to work toward peace in the region.

Wolf helped secure a $1 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development and received Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's blessing for the project. The project will be coordinated by the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, D.C., a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that examines past successes and failures of the presidency.

Hall, who traveled to the region last week for the project, said past Middle East peace efforts have not involved religious leaders. But religious leaders, he said, have helped effect change elsewhere in the world, including leading the effort to end apartheid in South Africa.

"I am not under any illusion that we will solve the problems in the Middle East," he said. "But I do want to build bridges, and I think we can."

He said he hoped his effort created a "spiritual will" in the region that would eventually lead to a "political will."

His efforts will bring him to Israel, Syria and Lebanon, but he said the initiative would not involve the U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Still, he said, he believed much of the tumult in the region could be eased if the conflict between Jews and Palestinians in Israel was resolved.

The $1 million will be split evenly between an economics-based effort — aimed at finding ways to boost the region's economy — and Hall's faith-based effort. Hall said he will receive no salary for his work.