Case
study 2
At the beginning
of the 20th century the Serbian
Orthodox Church was socially
privileged, highly reputed and
institution of major national and
cultural importance. Under the 1903
Constitution of the Kingdom of
Serbia Eastern Orthodoxy was
proclaimed official religion,
religious training was obligatory in
schools, national holidays were
marked by religious services and the
clergy paid by the state like other
public servants. Eastern Orthodoxy
and the Serbian Orthodox Church were
parts of official culture meant to
legitimize the system. This
“stimulating ideally-emblematic
pattern” persisted till the end of
the WWI and establishment of the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes (SHS) “though this period
beneficial to the Serbian Orthodox
Church may seem to have lasted till
the outbreak of World War II”
(Blagojević, 2005:157).
By consent of the
Constantinople Patriarchate that had
jurisdiction over eparchies in
Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and
the so-called Old Serbia the Serbian
Orthodox Church managed to be
officially unified in 1920. Its
traditionally privileged standing in
kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro
had already been eliminated under
the Corfu Declaration in 1917 and
especially King Alexander’s
proclamation of 1919 guaranteeing
equality to all religions in the
Kingdom of SHS.
The St. Vitus
Constitution of 1921 proclaimed the
principle of religious freedoms and
ensured equality of all religious
communities in theory, and declared
all religious communities
institutions with special privileges
and positions.
„ESTABLISHMENT’’ OF SPIRITUAL
JURISDICTION
Establishment of
the Kingdom of SHS on December 1,
1918 put under one umbrella almost
all the parts of the once Peć
Patriarchate, one of the Serbian
Orthodox Church’s parishes out of
which only the Archbishopric of
Serbia was autonomous. Only Zadar,
Skadar and Buda, as well as a large
part of the Timisoara Eparchy
remained beyond the borders of the
new state and, hence, of the united
Serbian Orthodox Church
(Slijepčević, 2002a:4). The Peć
Patriarchate dismantled in 1766 was
placed under the jurisdiction of the
Constantinople Patriarchate, while
some parts of the Church
organization were functioning in
different sociopolitical
circumstances, were differently
organized and disunited.
The Serbia-seated
Serbian Church became autonomous in
1878 in the status of the Belgrade
Archbishopric. The Holy
Archbishopric Assembly that included
all the bishops in Serbia and was
chaired by the Archbishop of
Belgrade and the Metropolitan of
Serbia was the highest spiritual
authority.
The locally-based
church in Vojvodina, Slavonia and
Croatia was an heir of the once
Archbishopric of Krušedol, the
autonomous diocese within the Peć
Patriarchate; later on it got the
status of the Karlovac Archbishopric
headed by a metropolitan. When the
Serbian Dukedom was proclaimed in
1848 a metropolitan was declared a
patriarch, and a regimental colonel
a duke.
When Montenegro
was proclaimed a princedom in 1852
and church and state authorities
separated, the locally-based Serbian
church in Montenegro became the
Cetinje Archbishopric that included
the Raška-Zahumlje Eparchy and the
renewed Peć Eparchy.
As of 1766 the
locally-based Serbian Church in
Bosnia-Herzegovina had been under
the jurisdiction of the
Constantinople Patriarchate. Four
organizational wholes were
functioning: Dabrobosnian,
Zahumlje-Herzegovina and
Zvornik-Tuzla bishoprics and an
autonomous eparchy of
Banjaluka-Bihać.
As for the Serbian
Church based in Dalmatia and Boka
Kotorska it had the status of the
Bukovina Archbishopric, while the
Holy Archbishopric Assembly was
convening in Vienna once Franz
Joseph I approved it.
As of 1766 the
Serbian Church locally based in Old
Serbia and Macedonia had been under
the jurisdiction of the Patriarch of
Constantinople; these regions were
integrated into the Kingdom of
Serbia after Second Balkan War.
Already in late
January 1918 representatives of all
parts of the Serbian Orthodox Church
held a conference in Sremski
Karlovci and began preparing the
terrain for unification of all
dioceses. Bishops’ decision on
unification of the Serbian Orthodox
Church was proclaimed by Regent
Alexander on June 17, 1920. The
Serbian patriarch was officially
named “the Serbian Patriarch of the
Eastern Orthodox Church of the
Kingdom of SHS” (Slijepčević,
2002:375). The Holy Archbishopric
Assembly of the united Serbian
Orthodox Church elected Metropolitan
of Serbia Dimitrije Pavlović the
first Patriarch of the renewed
Serbian Patriarchy on November 12,
1920.
SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH: BETWEEN THE
IDEAL OF HARMONY AND
THE ACTUAL CESAREAN-PAPACY
Election of the
first Patriarch of the united
Serbian Orthodox Church proved the
longtime tradition in the
relationship between the state and
the Serbian Orthodox Church ever
since the latter was proclaimed
autonomous. The government did not
acknowledge originally elected Holy
Archbishopric Assembly but issued a
decree on election of a first
patriarch of the united Serbian
Orthodox Church providing the
Election Assembly authorized to
elect one of three candidates for
the offices, nominated by the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly. Apart from
bishops and priests the Election
Assembly included many high
governmental officials, and had no
clear-cut criteria for members’
religious affiliation (Slijepčević,
2002:376). Dimša Perić’s
observations also testified of the
state’s traditional attitude towards
the Serbian Orthodox Church:
throughout Patriarch Dimitrije’s
lifetime (1846-1930), the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly had never
discussed the election of a
patriarch (Perić, 1999:210).
The principle of
harmony in the state-church
relationship was taken over from
Byzantium, and St. Sava incorporated
it into his ecclesiastical law or
canon (Nomokanon). However, an
insight into the history of
state-church relationship indicates
that the harmony was more of an
ideal than a reality.
Back at the time
of the second metropolitan of the
autonomous Serbian Church it was
obvious that the state assumed the
role of unquestionable interlocutor
in the dialogue with the Church.
Invoking the power structure
(Ustrojenije) the Princedom of
Serbia interested in religious
authorities – the state, or more
precisely Prince Miloš, had
verified, rather unwillingly and
with delay, Metropolitan Petar
Jovanović was forced to resign in
January 1859 when negotiations on
the status of the clergy under the
Police Law failed.
His successor
Metropolitan Mihailo was excluded
from the debate on the Law of Church
Authorities that annulled
Ustrojenije (enacted in 1847). The
Law provided state control over
functioning of all religious bodies
and invested the Minister of
Education and Religious Activities
with considerable authorities.
After they
together managed to get the act
(Tomos) on autonomy from the
Constantinople Patriarchate on
October 20, 1879, on the basis of
the Berlin Congress decisions,
spiritual and secular authorities
locked horns with each other:
Metropolitan Mihailo was relying on
Russia where he had finished his
education, while Serbia’s foreign
policy was turning towards Austria.
The crisis in their relationship was
manifest especially when the King
put his signature under the Tax Law
without consent from the Holy
Bishopric Assembly, the Belgrade
Bishopric and Metropolitan Mihailo;
it further deepened when the
Metropolitan refused to divorce King
Milan and Queen Natalia because
there were no canonic reasons for
dissolving their marriage. On
October 18, 1881 King Milan signed a
decree whereby the Metropolitan was
“discharged from the administration
of Belgrade and Serbian bishoprics.”
Having amended and
supplemented the 1882 Law the
government secured even stronger
influence on all church bodies, and
the Election Assembly - mostly
composed of secular officials –
voted as one and elected
Metropolitan Teodosije Mraović.
Bishops who had refused to
participate in the proceedings and
proclaim the newly elected
Metropolitan were dismissed on the
same occasion.
After King Milan’s
abdication the Regency discharged
Metropolitan Teodosije and bishops
Dimitrije and Nikanor on May 27,
1889. A day later it passed a decree
that reinstalled Metropolitan
Mihailo; this put an end to the
years-long “non-canonic” situation.
After Metropolitan
Mihailo’s death the Election
Assembly elected Metropolitan
Inokentije Pavlović during whose
term in office canonic and
“non-canonic” bishops (who had sided
with Metropolitan Teodosije)
reconciled. At the ceremony of
crowning King Peter Karađorđević in
1904 Metropolitan Inokentije managed
to restore the coronation tradition.
“No conflict with the state occurred
during his era: mostly everything
was done as the state said” (Perić,
1999: 190).
The last head of
the autonomous Serbian Bishopric –
after Metropolitan Inokentije’s
death – was elected by a repeat vote
and “in boiling atmosphere” (Perić,
1999:191) on August 18, 1905.
Metropolitan Dimitrije’s term in
office will be remembered by a
scandal in the People’s Assembly
that led to retirement of Bishop
Nikanor and, of course, even more by
Balkan Wars and the WWI. Together
with the government and the army the
Metropolitan set out through
Albanian calvary; Metropolitan of
Peć Gavrilo Dožić stayed in his seat
and was imprisoned in Hungary
throughout wartime.
SERBIAN ORTHORDOX CHURCH IN THE
KINGDOM OF SHS/YUGOSLAVIA
At the end of
World War I the Serbian Orthodox
Church faced huge losses in human
lives and material goods. Out of
3,000 priests at the outbreak of the
war, 1,056 died or were missing –
all in all, more than one third of
its clergy (Slijepčević, 2002:374).
Already in 1920 the Church lost vast
lands in the agrarian reform; many
of these confiscated grounds had not
been registered to their new owners
so the Church was obliged to pay
taxes on them for years.
The newly
established state was
multi-religious. According to the
1921 census, 46.8% of the population
were Orthodox, 39.4% Catholics and
10.9% Muslims.
On January 6, 1919
Regent Alexander issued a
proclamation banning the privileged
status of the Serbian Orthodox
Church and making of recognized
religions equal.
The Constitution
of the Kingdom of SHS declared in
1921 on St. Vitus Day adopted the
principles of the Corfu Declaration
on equality of all religions or,
more precisely, the seventh article
of this document: all recognized
religions shall be manifested freely
and publicly. The Orthodox, Catholic
and Muslim religion with the bulk of
believers were proclaimed mutually
equal and equal vis-à-vis the state.
Article 16 of the
Decree on Centralization of
Executive and Judicial Powers in the
Serbian Patriarchy providing that
“all provisions of special laws and
autonomous degrees of the Church
contrary to this Decree shall be
annulled” (Slijepčević, 2002:377)
repeated the provisions applicable
to the Serbian Orthodox Church in
the Kingdom of Serbia, i.e. before
unification. The Decree on the
Ministry of Religions passed on June
1919 placed the Serbian Orthodox
Church under the state control in
all of its religiously-political
activities if the latter were
invested in the state; Article 3 of
the said document invested the
Minister of Religions with “all
executive powers” in Serbia and
Montenegro (Slijepčević, 2002:378).
After the Synod’s
numerous appeals against the
Minister’s interventions into the
existing agreement, the government
passed the Law on the Serbian
Orthodox Church on November 8, 1929.
The Church’s properties, funds and
legacies remained under the
supervision of the state that
retained the right to expropriate
remaining properties of the Church,
while the King maintained in his
hold the right to veto the elected
bishops and the Patriarch; the
Ministry of Justice continued to
supervise autonomy of the Church’s
schools, i.e. to decide on their
establishment and curricula. The Law
on the Election of the Patriarch of
the Serbian Orthodox Church enacted
on April 6, 1930 was an actual copy
of the 1920 Decree on the Election
of the First Serbian Patriarch and
made sure that the ruler and the
state could considerably influence
his election. The state,
nevertheless met some of the Church
demands: the Church was granted
continued financial assistance, its
official correspondence was freed
from postal taxes while Eastern
Orthodox believers were freed from
paying the so-called patriarchal
taxes.
A new constitution
of the Serbian Orthodox Church was
enacted on November 24, 1931. It
incorporated the provisions on the
election of bishops and the
Patriarch, while all clerks working
for church offices and institutions
had to pledge loyalty to the King
like other public servants. The
Patriarch was in the membership of
the Crown Council and was granted
privileges in accordance with his
high office. This privileged
position mirrored the old tradition
of the Serbian state in which a
patriarch was second to a king and
held in high esteem. At the Minister
of Justice’s proposal and with the
Patriarch’s and the Ministerial
Council’s consent, the King
appointed 12 lay persons to the
Patriarchal Management Board, which
stood for “the highest legislative
representation in the Church
management’s dealing with the
outside world” (Slijepčević,
2002:382).
It was only in
1933 that the problem of religious
teaching was solved by the Law on
Religious Teaching in secondary and
teachers’ schools. Until the
outbreak of the WWII all
correspondence between the Serbian
Orthodox Church with natural persons
and institutions abroad went through
the Foreign Ministry. This policy,
inherited from the Kingdom of
Serbia, applied just to the SPC;
other religious communities were
free and uncontrolled in their
international correspondence (Perić,
1999:212).
CONFLICTS BETWEEN SPIRITUAL AND
SECULAR POWERS IN THE KINGDOM
OF YUGOSLAVIA
The Serbian
Orthodox Church has come into open
conflict with the state several
times. Firstly on March 24, 1930,
shortly after the death of Patriarch
Dimity, when the King “sub rosa and
behind the Synod’s back” put his
signature under the above-mentioned
Law on the Election of the Patriarch
of SPC. The Holy Synod, chaired by
Metropolitan of Montenegro and
Seaside Gavrilo Dožić responded
strongly to the Law and called for
its amendment. A day before the
scheduled electoral assembly the
Synod resigned collectively, and the
King and the government decided to
amend the disputable provision and
accept the SPC assembly’s proposals.
Out of three candidates selected by
the electoral assembly the King
appointed Metropolitan of Skopje
Varnava the Patriarch.
The biggest
conflict between the two broke out
over a concordat. The government
drafted the concordat in agreement
with Vatican and without any
consultation with the (majority)
Serbian Orthodox Church; the
People’s Assembly voted it in on
July 23, 1937, and Patriarch Varnava
died on the following night. Several
days before the vote on the disputed
agreement took place a procession
praying for the Patriarch’s
recovery, supported by the
opposition, broke out into mass
protests known in history as “bloody
procession.” The Serbian Orthodox
Church excommunicated all orthodox
ministers and MPs who had voted for
the concordat, while the state
imposed censorship on the Synod’s
releases. The crises over the
concordat resulted in a breakup of
all contacts between the Church and
the Kingdom. It was only in February
1938 that the state had to guarantee
in writing that the concordat would
not be made legal, that the SPC
would be consulted thenceforwards
and all the victims of the concordat
crisis amnestied; following an
electoral assembly the regency
issued a decree whereby Metropolitan
Gavrilo was appointed the Patriarch.
Establishment of
Banat of Croatia as an autonomous
territorial unit within the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia was also a hotbed of
new conflicts between the Serbian
Orthodox Church and the state; it
was only due to the upcoming world
war that these crises did not grow
as fierce as the concordat crisis
was. The Cvetković-Maček Agreement
whereby a considerable part of the
SPC jurisdiction was bestowed on
Banat of Croatia was seen as yet
another attack at Eastern Orthodoxy
and the Serbian entity in the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The Synod’s
Christmas encyclical in 1940
testifies of seriousness and
significance the Church attached to
this document. “The Holy Synod is
aware that rearrangements do cause
disturbance and injustice, as cries
of dissatisfaction are reaching it
from all sides; however, the Holy
Synod believes that all this
situation could not and would not
persist, as it feels strongly
confident that Serbian bloodshed for
creation and size of this
motherland, the people’s and state
unity was not shed in vain; it
believes that lives sacrificed for
all brother Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes could not be despised but
that equality and freedom for every
brother in the motherland has been
earned in a superhuman endeavor.”
(Slijepčević, 2002:383).
At the onset of
the WWII, on April 23, 1934, Gestapo
arrested Patriarch Gavrilo in the
Monastery of Ostrog. Bishops who
managed to avoid the hardship
assembled in Belgrade, and headed by
Metropolitan of Skopje Joseph
organized functioning of the Holy
Synod under existing circumstances.
SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN
YUGOSLAVIA AFTER WORLD WAR II
The end of the
WWII found the Serbian Orthodox
Church with destroyed organizational
structure, one fourth of total
clergy dead or missing, and huge
material and financial loss. Out of
over 4,200 churches and chapels, as
well as 220 monasteries, 330
churches, 49 chapels and 17
monasteries were destroyed during
the WWII, and as many as 335
churches, 23 chapels and 17
monasteries seriously damaged.
Biggest destructions took place on
the territory of the Independent
State of Croatia /NDH/ (Radić,
1995:125).
The Serbian
Orthodox Church found itself in the
worst material situation since
unification: almost all sources of
income had been exhausted,
subventions and taxes (patriarchal,
bishopric and municipal) annulled,
funds destroyed and lands that
remained in the Church’s ownership
after the agrarian reform in 1920
become subject to another agrarian
reform; 70,000 hectares of lands and
forests were expropriated from the
Church, and 1,180 church buildings
nationalized (Slijepčević,
2002a:170). Metropolitan Joseph and
the Holy Synod refused to negotiate
on the Church’s position in the
absence of the Patriarch. Therefore,
in mid-November 1946 the government
of the Federal People’s Republic of
Yugoslavia decided to enable
Patriarch Gavrilo’s homecoming.
The FPR of
Yugoslavia’s constitution passed on
January 31, 1946 proclaimed
separation between religious
communities and the state. The
Synod’s appeal for maintenance of
sacrament of matrimony was not taken
into consideration in drafting the
constitution.
Article 25
providing church-state separation
was conveyed to a new constitution
declared on January 13, 1956.
The newly
established political system soon
demonstrated its negative attitude
towards religion and religious
communities by passing a set of
systemic regulations that
marginalized, de-monopolized,
de-politicized and economically
further weakened all religious
organizations throughout the
country, including the Serbian
Orthodox Church. Church-state
separation, secularized education,
ban on religious training in public
schools, as well as exclusion of the
Theological Faculty from the
Belgrade University (1952) directly
undermined the Church’s and
religion’s economic, political and
cultural influence on the population
(Blagojević, 2005:160). This
post-war “administrative type of
state policy” was characterized by
controversy or conflict between
state-party bureaucracy and
religious communities, and measures
whereby the state was trying to
dwindle influence of the Church
inasmuch as possible; it managed to
accomplish all this pretty soon, and
placed the Church under its
supervision and control (Blagojević,
2005:165-166).
The entire period
1945-70 can be divided into two
stages: 1. 1953-54, open
governmental repression against
religious communities on the one
hand, and their open resistance; and
2. from mid-2950s till mid-1960s,
mutual adjustments and search for a
sustainable model of relations. In
the second stage, after 1953-54, the
pressure of ideology was weaker and
weaker (Radić, 2007:285). Economic
and political liberalization in
mid-1960 was gradually weakening the
pressure of politics on religious
communities due to liberalization of
the relationship between them and
the state. Simultaneously, however,
religious communities took a more
cooperative and loyal attitude
towards the socialist state.
During World War
II, like on the eve of it, the
Serbian Orthodox Church was looking
askance at communists as it saw them
as infidels; having favored the
monarchy it sided with the
nationalistic right-wing and Draža
Mihailović’s Tchetnik movement. It
manifested its preference in
rituals; even after the war the
King’s name was mentioned in every
liturgy. The socialist state’s
resolute showdown with the Tchetnik
movement and monarchism after WWII
deprived the Church of
ideological-political backing and
even subsidies.
Anti-communism
permeating the Serbian Orthodox
Church was most manifest in magazine
“Christian Thought” which kept
alerting readers to communist threat
and activities of the People’s
Front. Illustrative of the
magazine’s stance is the editorial
of the November 1939 issue headlined
“Bleak Theses in the Form of an
Appeal to the Church,” “a concise
memorandum on spiritual-political
situation of the country,” “No enemy
is as dangerous to the Church today
as communism. There is every reason
for the Church – and mostly the
spirit and sense of its existence –
to start a resolute struggle against
communism. The struggle must begin
immediately and at all costs. The
entire nation can and must be
mobilized,” argues the editorial.
SHISMS IN THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX
CHURCH
Two schisms befell
the Serbian Orthodox Church
following the WWII. The first was in
the case of canonically not
recognized Macedonian Orthodox
Church initiated back in March 1945
when the “Initiatory Committee in
Skopje” called for restoration of
the Ohrid Archbishopric.
The Macedonian
Orthodox Church /MPC/ was formally
proclaimed in early October 1958 at
a popular-clerical gathering in
Ohrid. First constitution of the MPC
proclaimed on October 6, 1958
provides that the MPC “shall be in
canonic unity with the Serbian
Orthodox Church through His Holiness
the Patriarch of the Serbian
Orthodox Church.” In late 1966 the
MPC Synod demanded to be recognized
as autocephalous and that only added
fuel to the fire of the relationship
between the two churches. At a
meeting in Belgrade Metropolitan
Dositej and his bishops openly
requested recognition of the
autocephalous status for the
Macedonian Orthodox Church. When the
Holy Archbishopric Assembly of the
SPC turned down this demand, the MPC
held “a church-popular gathering” in
Ohrid on June 19, 1967, which
declared it autocephalous
unilaterally. The Serbian Orthodox
Church saw this religious
organization as schismatic and ended
every communication with it.
In the early 1960s
SPC priests in diaspora began
intensively criticizing their
counterparts in Yugoslavia for their
lenient and cooperative attitude
towards the communist regime. It was
in diaspora that the second schism
took place; after division of the
American-Canadian Eparchy,
American-Canadian Bishop Dionisije
was suspended for refusing to
acknowledge decisions of the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly on
establishment of three new
eparchies. Namely, after partition
of the American-Canadian Eparchy was
decided on, Bishop Dionisije
convened the Tenth Church-People’s
Assembly for November 10-14, 1963.
The Assembly decided to observe not
any decision, solution or
instruction by the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly from Belgrade
as long as Yugoslavia was under the
rule of communists, and declare the
American-Canadian Eparchy free and
independent. When the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly unfrocked
Bishop Dionisije and restored him to
the laical order under the name
Dragoljub Milivojević most
church-school municipalities in
Australia sided with the
excommunicated bishop. For his part
he convened the First
Church-People’s Assembly on October
31, 1964 in Melbourne, which founded
the Free Serbian Orthodox Church,
Eparchy of Australia and New
Zealand. The latter, its
metropolitan and constitution were
proclaimed in the Monastery of New
Gračanica near Chicago on August 10,
1984. From 1963 till 1991 when
differences were overcome, the
Archbishopric of New Gračanica was
at odds with the Serbian Patriarchy
and called itself the Free Serbian
Orthodox Church.
The Alliance of
Eastern Orthodox Priests in SFRY
should also be included among
schismatic organizations; successor
of the pre-war Alliance of Serbian
Orthodox Clergy in Yugoslavia, the
Alliance had deepened gaps between
the lowest and highest SPC ranks for
decades. It traces to 1942 in Srpska
Jasenica and to be reestablished in
Bosnia-Herzegovina (1946) and then
registered in Serbia, Macedonia and
Montenegro (Slijepčević, 2002a:181).
In early March 1949 294 clergymen
founded the Alliance of Eastern
Orthodox Priests in Federative
People’s Republic of Yugoslavia,
which held its first congress in
mid-October 1951. According to the
Alliance’s official register its
membership amounted to 1,925
clergymen and it was claimed that
this figure totaled 70% of Orthodox
clergy in SPC (Slijepčević,
2002a:183).
The Bishopric
would not accept this form of
clergymen’s organization although it
had been approved by the
authorities. The Holy Archbishopric
Assembly refused to recognize
associations established in
republics but called for renewal of
bishopric associations which had
joined the membership of the
Alliance of Associations through the
Alliance of Eparchies. Already in
December 1947 members of the
Association (the alliance to be)
were critical of clericalism while
calling for democratization of
church administration. Later on, the
Association demanded revision of SPC
Constitution declared that year,
along with the entire church
legislation. As it was to be
expected, the Alliance, itself not
recognized by SPC, sided with also
not recognized Macedonian Orthodox
Church.
The Alliance of
Eastern Orthodox Priests formed by
clergymen that have been in the
partisan movement was very hostile
to the Bishopric (Marković,
2005:168), wherein “none of SPC
bishops, alive at the time, had
sympathy for partisan struggle”
(Slijepčević, 2002a:189). The
Alliance closed down in 1990.
A polemic over an
autocephalous orthodox church in
Montenegro was opened in 1998. The
very initiative, seen in the
above-mentioned context, could be
tracked down to a resolution a part
of the clergy that remained in
Montenegro adopted at their assembly
in June 1945. Instead of the Serbian
Orthodox Church the resolution
quotes the Orthodox Church accusing
SPC of “pan-Serbian chauvinistic
ideas.” It also called for “a
democratic church organization”
(Slijepčević, 2002a:101).
CONSEQUENCES OF ATHEIZATION
Taking into
account findings of the post-war
census in 1953, which has a rubric
for religious affiliation one can
conclude that atheization process
had not been exactly efficient at
first: 88 percent of total
population said they were believers
and only 12 percent called
themselves unreligious or atheist.
The census
indicated differences between
republics, later on to be confirmed
in empirical researches of
religiousness and people’s attitudes
towards religion: smallest
percentage of unbelievers was in
Montenegro – along with the biggest
percentage of nonbelievers (32%). In
comparison with other parts of the
country the percentage of
nonbelievers was also high in
Belgrade (29.5) while most believers
were inhabitants of Kosovo and
Metohija, and Slovenia (Blagojević,
2005:168).
Considering
methodological limitations or the
fact that no comparable synthetic
indicator of religiousness is
available (a scale or an index),
findings of systemic researches of
religiousness in socialist
Yugoslavia, which are by far more
related to Catholicism, provide an
overview of basic tendencies of
specific confessional areas. As
early as in 1964 about 70 percent of
total population said they were
religious, and some 30 percent did
not specify their creeds
(nonreligious or atheists). By the
end of this decade, in 1968,
findings of a public opinion poll
showed that nonreligious persons
were in the majority; 51 percent of
interviewees said they were
atheists, and 39 percent believers.
Researchers conducted led to the
conclusion that in comparison with
predominantly Catholic, Islamic or
religiously mixed areas conventional
religiousness in predominantly
Orthodox regions such as the
so-called Serbia proper (without two
provinces) and Montenegro was
spiraling down. Later researches
conducted in the 1970s also
confirmed this conclusion
(Blagojević, 2005:169-170).
Because of
people’s evidently record-breaking
breakup with religion and the
Serbian Orthodox Church in orthodox
homogeneous (Montenegro and Serbia
proper) or multi-religious region
(Vojvodina and Croatia) Orthodoxy
became less important as a signpost
of morality or driving force of
human behavior, and less and less
people were attending religious
ceremonies of participating in
church life generally (Blagojević,
2005:174).
In his Christmas
and Easter encyclicals in 1970
Patriarch German also alerted of
“sudden and horrible breakup with
religion” and “declining
religiousness” (Slijepčević,
2002a:143).
However, in
parallel with evidently growing
political and economic crises of
Yugoslav socialist system in the
1980s people’s religiousness was
changing even in confessionaly
homogeneous regions in Serbia and
Montenegro. Despite numerous
methodological limitations public
option polls conducted at the time
provide a relatively reliable
insight into this trend. By the end
of this decade researches conducted
on a sample of youth population show
the average of 34 percent of
religious interviewees, which, when
compared with findings of the
youth-focused polls in Central
Serbia in 1974 (11 percent of
religious) or a year later (17
percent) estimates the average of
youth religiousness at 26 percent.
Interestingly, youth religiousness
in Vojvodina amounted to 34 and in
Kosovo at even 48 percent
(Blagojević, 2005:224).
The public opinion
polls conducted in mid-1990 showed
that the difference between though
still minority religious
interviewees and the rest was
drastically reduced but that already
detected consistencies of different
levels of religiousness in different
territorial-national areas remained.
Most religious population was in
Kosovo (67%), then in Slovenia (58),
Macedonia (51), Croatia (46) and
Montenegro (39). On this sample 84
percent of interviewees specified
their religious affiliation; as it
was to be expected, the most
religious population in the earlier
period now mostly identified
themselves with Orthodoxy: 91
percent of Montenegrins specified
their religion, more than Albanians
(90 percent) and Croats (86), as
well as Serbs and Macedonians (86
percent each) (Blagojević,
2005:226).
The poll testified
of a high level of people’s
identification with religions
appropriate to their nation, and
showed a higher percentage of
believers among members of national
minorities than among the majority
population in local communities or
among their compatriots in “mother”
republics. Such was the case of,
say, Serbs in Kosovo, Albanians in
Macedonia, Muslims in Serbia and
Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This
was to be ascribed to homogenizing
roles of different religions of
particular peoples. Revival of
religiousness in the early 1990s was
most manifest in Orthodoxy
considering that people have been
distancing themselves from
religious-church complex for decades
(Blagojević, 2005:229).
Following the rise
in the 1980s in the early 1990s
conventional religiousness in
socialist Yugoslavia, measured by
indicator of self-estimation,
reached its maximum. Confessional
self-identification of all nations
in Yugoslavia was high and regularly
amounted to more than 80 percent.
By making
indicators more precise it is
obvious that conventional
religiousness cannot be measured
only by conventional
self-identification and
self-declared religiousness.
According to public opinion polls
83.5 percent of interviewees in
Central Serbia self-declared
themselves Orthodox, almost 30
percent said they were religious and
20 percent claimed they believed in
God; only 3.8 percent of
interviewees go to church once a
week (Blagojević, 2005:230).
SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AS A
“COUNTER-SECULARIZATION ACTIVIST”
The year 1982 –
and especially “Appeal” signed by 21
clergymen and addressed Serbia and
Yugoslavia’s highest authorities,
the Holy Archbishopric Assembly and
the Synod - is usually quoted in
literature as the year when the
Serbian Orthodox Church made a
comeback. “Appeal” alerted of the
necessity to protect spiritual and
biological being of Serbian people
in Kosovo and Metohija (Radić,
2002:303). Primary and initial
sociopolitical context of this
comeback was a political crisis
manifested in well-known events in
Kosovo a year before. Further
encouraged by the growingly deeper
political and economic crisis of the
Yugoslav socialist system, the
Serbian Orthodox Church – louder and
louder, and more and more frequently
– was raising the question of Kosovo
as a political topic No. 1, along
with that of Serbs’ position in
other parts of Yugoslavia,
especially in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Kosovo became a
regular topic in all newspapers
issued by the Serbian Orthodox
Church. Most prominent among several
outstanding authors was the then
monastic Atanasije Jevtić, whose
articles were given more and more
prominent place in official church
papers in the years to come.
Speaking of his known articles one
should surely mention the one titled
“From Kosovo and about Kosovo”
(1982) on extermination of the
Serbian people on the territory of
Serbia’s south province; the
feuilleton (late 1983) “From Kosovo
to Jadovno” that draws parallels
between Serbs’ hardships in various
parts of Yugoslavia, text “Kosovo
Pledge” (1987), an article published
in installments (1987) under the
headline “Serbs in Kosovo on Baptism
Day – A Bleak Calendar – Kosovo
Chronicle of Serbs’ Suffering by the
Hand of Shiptar Oppressors,
published from October 1988
throughout 1989, etc. Archive
materials illustrated with photos of
crimes committed against Serb
population were regularly published
in the above-mentioned period. A
press release by the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly issued in
1987 was the first to use the term
genocide to refer to what was going
on with Serbian population in Kosovo
and parts of Southeast Serbia.
Throughout 1988
and within preparations for marking
the 600th anniversary of Battle of
Kosovo – according to highest church
officials, one of most important
events in Serbia’s modern history –
bodily remnants of Prince Lazar were
carried from the Monastery of
Ravanica all the way to the
Monastery of Gračanica in Kosovo.
The epistle by Bishop of
Sabac-Valjevo Jovan on the occasion
of the arrival of Prince Lazar’s
mortal remains in Kosovo refers to
the term “heavenly Serbia.” The
anniversary of Battle of Kosovo was
also marked in Dalmatia Kosovo, Mt.
Romanija and in Drvar.
Ever since 1984
and in parallel with the prevalent
topic of Kosovo SPC papers had been
publishing stories about Serbs’
hardship in Independent State of
Croatia /NDH/ and especially in the
Jasenovac concentration camp. These
stories started with sanctification
of the Jasenovac church when
Patriarch German appealed for
forgiveness though not for oblivion.
In the second half of the 1980s
stories about present-day threats to
Serbs in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina began
accompanying those about genocide in
the WWII. Releases about difficult,
“almost occupying conditions” of SPC
in Croatia and Slovenia were issued
twice throughout 1990.
The May 1990
meeting of the Holy Archbishopric
Assembly addressed relevant
governmental institutions demanding
excavation of mortal remains of
those killed in the WWII so that
they could be buried with dignity.
Reports from Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina on burial
services victims of genocide,
excavations of their bones and
interments in were published
throughout the year. The practice
was intensified in 1991, the year
the Archbishopric Assembly
designated for liturgical marking of
the 10th anniversary of SPC hardship
and genocide against its flock.
Victims of Ustashi terror in
Bosnia-Herzegovina were being buried
throughout that year: in Žitomislić,
Prebilovci, Ljubinje, Trebinje,
Majevica, Banjaluka, etc.
The May 1991
meeting of the Holy Archbishopric
Assembly discussed, among other
topics, the situation in the
so-called SAO (Serbian Autonomous
Region of) Krajina and Croatia and
called its flock to help those
expelled from Croatia. It also
appealed to “all Serbs” to behave
“soberly and humanly” should larger
conflicts brake out.
In October 1991
Patriarch Pavle wrote to Lord
Carrington, the president of the
International Conference on
Yugoslavia, claiming that because
genocide committed against Serbs in
Croatia in the past and ongoing
developments in this republic Serbs
could not possibly remain within any
independent Croatia but have to
share a roof over their heads with
Serbia and all Serb krajinas. “It is
high time to understand that
genocide victims and their former
and probably future executioners
could not possibly live side by
side.” A similar letter was also
addressed to the chairman and all
participants of the Peace Conference
in The Hague in early November. A
delegation of the Assembly’s
extraordinary session paid visits to
Vice-President of Yugoslavia’s
Presidency Dr. Branko Kostić and
Serbia’s President Slobodan
Milošević to demand them not to
allow the Presidency or
representatives of Serbia and
Montenegro to have, either in The
Hague or anywhere else, “the most
tragic solution to their issue”
imposed on the Serbian people.
Metropolitan of
Zagreb-Ljubljana Jovan, Bishop of
Srem Vasilije, Bishop Stefan and
Bishop of Osijek-Dalj-Baranja
Lukijan visited the training center
for Serb volunteers in Erdut. A
meeting with their commander Željko
Ražnjatović Arkan released that “the
Holy Synod of SPC advocates a
peaceful solution but not at the
detriment of the Serb people, once
again a target for Ustashi crimes.”
A report on the meeting quotes that
church representatives were
“especially pleased to learn that
the training center keeps the
tradition of the Serbian people not
in order to fuel nationalism but to
awaken Eastern Orthodoxy that has
been choked for decades.”
“THERE CAN BE NO STRONG STATE
WITHOUT A STRONG CHURCH”
In the editorial
published on the occasion of St.
Vitus Day in 1989 the Voice of
Church publication expounded its
“Draft Serbian Church-National
Program” saying among other things,
“The fact remains that over the past
two years relationship between the
Serbian Church and Serbian politics
has changed as much as it had not in
half a century from the war onwards.
We could not have expected more for
the time being. However, we should
not call it a day. One should not be
afraid or shy of the Church, which
has been a pillar of the Serbian
nation for centuries. The Serbian
Church does not want to be a partner
to the state nor it want a share in
its politics – not now as it never
has. This is alien to its
spirituality. Although it is not
supportive of any sociopolitical
order or a party, the Church cannot
be completely apolitical. Therefore,
we ask the Serbian political
leadership that advocates a program
for building of a democratic
European state to make it possible
for the Church to resume the role
that had been unfairly and violently
seized from it and so fill the
social gap its neglect had opened.
For, there can be no strong state
without a strong church!” Church
papers were more and more frequently
publishing stories in favor of
activities by the Serbian
leadership.
A press release
issued after a meeting between
members of the Holy Archbishopric
Synod and President of the SR of
Serbia Presidency in mid June 1990
says, among other things, “We are
pleased to say that the meeting
between the leader of a new Serbia
and Serbian bishops, members of the
Holy Archbishopric Synod, will prove
that a difficult and ugly period in
the life of the Serbian Orthodox
Church is over, at least in Serbia.”
In early 1990 the
Christmas liturgy in the
Congressional Church was broadcast
live; two and a half months later
Easter was celebrated “publicly and
freely as a general holiday” and
marked by opening of the St. Sava
Temple where the first liturgy was
held. That year St. Sava ball and
St. Sava academy were organized for
the first time after the WWII, and
it was also for the first time that
students of the Religious College
prevented a play from being staged
while the Church strongly demanded
taking off the play from a
repertoire; and this was what
happened.
MAINTAINANCE OF JURISDICTION
The Serbian
Orthodox Church and political elites
came to be at odds when first peace
agreements were being signed during
the 1990s wars. On January 24, 1992
an extraordinary session of the Holy
Archbishopric Assembly was convened
when President of the Republic of
Serbia Slobodan Milošević accepted
Cyrus Vance’s peace plan. The
meeting released, “Nobody’s deals
with Serbia’s authorities that are
unauthorized to represent the entire
Serbian nation or with bodies of the
Yugoslav federation or commanders of
the Yugoslav Army oblige the Serbian
people as a whole without their
consent and without the blessing of
their spiritual Mother, the Orthodox
Church.” The release supports “the
request of the people in
Bosnia-Herzegovina for a life in
freedom and independent political
arrangement.”
Soon after, a long
regular session (in May) of the Holy
Archbishopric Synod gave birth to
the Memorandum of the Serbian
Orthodox Church whereby the latter
“openly distances itself from this
and such government and its leaders”
because the parties in power in
Serbia and Montenegro, as successors
of the structure, bodies, funds and
principles of the post-war communist
system, stand in the way of an
unbiased democratic dialogue in the
society, shared responsibility and
cooperation with others, and do not
allow the Church to take its proper
place in the society. The Memorandum
also condemns crimes committed by
any army whatsoever, as well as
attacks at humanitarian convoys.
Throughout 1992
the Serbian Orthodox Church was
distancing itself from the official
policy and criticizing its
promoters. Patriarch Pavle’s
attendance at the ceremony of
proclamation of the FR of Yugoslavia
on April 27, 1992 was condemned not
only within the predominant church
but also outside it. The Patriarch
reacted saying that was nothing but
a mere protocolary event. In
response, the Pravoslavlje /Eastern
Orthodoxy/ magazine published the
editorial under the headline “The
Church is above Parties” arguing
that in some cases the SPC should be
represented ex officio, which means
not its acknowledgment of the ruling
regime. Speaking of the Church’s
distancing itself from the state
politics the following are most
illustrative: the Patriarch’s
address in front of the
Congressional Church on June 14 and
his attendance at the St. Vitus Day
manifestation staged by the
democratic opposition; editorials in
Pravoslavlje, stories published in
“The Voice of the Church” /Glas
crkve/; the letter of support Bishop
Artemije addressed to students in
protest, etc. Basically, the Church
was dissatisfied with the level of
assistance Serbian and Montenegrin
authorities were offering to the
Serbian people in Bosnia-Herzegovina
(Radić, 2002:331).
The ruling regime
was also strongly criticized at the
session of the Holy Archbishopric
Synod in 1993. The same year, on the
occasion of St. Vitus Day, Bishop
Atanasije Jevtić delivered “appeal”
against “sacrificing of Eastern
Herzegovina” in negotiations with
the Croatian side and in various
versions of the Vance-Owen plan. The
regime was being accused of lenient
attitude towards the international
community in the matter of “defense
of interests of Serbs on the other
bank of the Drina River.”
Metropolitan
Amfilohije Radović’s statement given
at that time best illustrates the
SPC’s attitude towards territories
the Serbs were living on and which
have remained outside the borders of
the FR of Yugoslavia, especially
towards Republika Srpska. He said,
“The backbone of those united lands
is already known and is being
reshaped despite all difficulties.
Serbia and Montenegro make this
backbone, together with Eastern
Herzegovina, a part of Bosanska
Krajina, Srpska Krajina…Contours of
those Serbian lands has shown
themselves clearly in past
developments…and it was such a pity
that cry and scream by Srpska
Krajina have not been responded
dully…”
In May 1993,
addressing his flock in the Foča
church Metropolitan Jovan stressed
significance of the assistance the
Holy Archbishopric Synod gave to
Republika Srpska and local Serbs
struggle for a state of their own.
Metropolitan Nikolaj and bishops
Vasilije and Atanasije attended the
session of RS Assembly in Pale
discussing the Contact Group’s peace
plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina. Bishop
Atanasije conveyed the SPC message
to Bosnian Serbs: they should not
accept to be decimated once again.
Commenting on
negotiations on Bosnia-Herzegovina –
precisely, on the Contact Group’s
peace plan - the SPC bishopric
conference of July 5, 1994 issued
the “Appeal to the Serbian People
and International Public.” “Fully
responsible to God and our people,
and to human history, we appeal to
the Serbian nation to stand up and
defend their centuries-old rights
and freedoms, and interests that are
vital to their physical and
spiritual survival on their
ancestral lands. As expected,
bishops turned down peace-building
maps and argued that people should
have their say at a referendum.
The government’s
decision on cutting political and
economic ties with RS was the reason
to convey an extraordinary session
of the Holy Archbishopric Synod
while the release issued by it
triggered off numerous commentaries
at home and abroad, including the
World Council of Churches’ strong
criticism for SPC nationalism. A
couple of days before the session
the Montenegro-Seaside Metropolitan
Seat addressed Montenegrin MPs
demanding them to vote against the
decision the government of the FR of
Yugoslavia had made.
Yet another
interesting detail should be
mentioned here: Patriarch Pavle’s
presence at the meeting between
Slobodan Milošević and Radovan
Karadžić in late August 1995, and
especially his signature under a
disputable document authorizing
Slobodan Milošević to negotiate on
behalf of all Serbs caused a serious
crisis in SPC and some of the clergy
even called for his dethronement.
The extraordinary session of the
Holy Bishopric Synod on December
21-22, 1995 declared the Patriarch’s
signature invalid and expressed its
deep concern with the Dayton
Accords. “As it circulates this
release at home and to international
factors and because of present
dilemmas or misinterpretations – be
they benevolent or malicious - the
Holy Bishopric Synod also takes it
its duty to let the public know that
His Holiness Patriarch of Serbia’s
recent signature under the agreement
between representatives of the
Republic of Serbia – i.e. Yugoslavia
– and Republika Srpska means in no
way that he or the Church as a whole
support concrete initiatives by the
signatories.”
The regular
session of the Synod in May 1996
made the following decision,
“Regardless of disintegration of
Versailles-made Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, the Serbian
Orthodox Church still holds
jurisdiction over all Orthodox
believers on this territory.”
A JUST WAR
The “defense war”
theory was rounded off and
systematized by 1996, a year after
the end of armed conflicts, and
presented in print at the “Second
Religious-Philosophical Symposium”
held in honor of St. Peter
Cetinjski, “bishop and warrior.”
Actually it was printed in the
collection of papers titled “God’s
Lamb and the Beast from Underworld:
the Philosophy of War” (Jagnje
Božije i zvijer iz bezdana -
filozofija rata), a compilation of
articles by best known theologians
of SPC who had developed the
“philosophy of war” in the 1990s.
Probably most interesting among the
authors was Bishop Atanasije who
argued that some wars bring one
“closer to God” and that “a war is
better than a peace that separates
us from God.” And, most interesting
in his writing may be sections about
historical responsibility. “We deny
not that this was our war and wagged
by Serbs. Responsible for it is Tsar
Dušan who had let go Konavle, the
Dubrovnik Seashore and the Island of
Pelješac as much as Milošević who
had betrayed the Serbs and wagged
not the war he started till the end.
Karadžić i Mladić are ‘mythic
figures’ because they set off a holy
act of war whereby ‘death enters the
third millennium.’”
“ORTHODOX BELIEVERS PRAY FOR ALL BUT
NOT WITH ALL”
When the common
Yugoslav state was established,
instead of privileged position they
used to have within their prior
sociopolitical frameworks Catholic
and Serbian churches became equal
religious communities.
Characteristic of the relationship
between the Roman Catholic and
Serbian Orthodox churches are
“innate psychological barriers”
(Ver, 1991:72), i.e. multitude of
inherited stereotypes on both sides.
In addition to doctrinal differences
between the two – about filioque and
pontifex maximus most of all – it is
generally hard for the Orthodox to
overcome past experiences such as
crusades, the Treaty of
Brest-Lytovsk, Antiochian schism in
the 18th century, persecution of the
Orthodox Church by the Polish
Catholic government between the two
world wars, etc. And locally, there
are experiences of hardship
believers, clergy and bishoprics of
the Serbian Orthodox Church suffered
in the WWII on the territory of NDH
and state leadership’s and the
Catholic Church’s attitudes towards
it marked the relationship between
two religious communities throughout
the second half of the 20th century.
Until the early
1960s Orthodox and Catholic
clergymen barely ever communicated,
let alone bishops of the two
churches met (Radić, 2007:286). The
Second Vatican Council (1962-65)
that strengthened the ideal of
ecumenism and set foundations to
inter-religious dialogue placed this
dialogue in Yugoslavia in a wider
context. In the 1960s Pope Paul VI
and Patriarch of Constantinople
Atenagora met three times: in
Jerusalem in 1964, in Istanbul and
Rome in 1967, and on December 7,
1965 mutually annulled anathemas of
1054. It was in 1965 that the
Serbian Orthodox Church joined the
World Council of Churches, and in
1968 Patriarch German was elected
one of its six chairpersons.
In 1964 Bishop of
Djakovica and Bosnia-Srem Stjepan
Baeuerlein who succeeded torchbearer
of Christian unity Josip Juraj
Strossmayer, founded a pastoral
institute for unification of
churches. Among the pioneers of
inter-religious dialogue were also
young theology students in Zagreb,
Ljubljana and Belgrade who were
communicating in writing and
exchanging congratulations on
occasion of religious holidays.
During the Second Vatican Council in
1963 theology students in Ljubljana
visited their peers in Belgrade,
while a delegation of Zagreb
theologians paid a visit to Belgrade
the following year. The same year
Belgrade-seated theologians visited
them in Zagreb (Kolarić, 1991:177).
In January 1966
Archbishop of Split Frane Franić
staged the first ecumenical liturgy
in the Split Cathedral together with
an Eastern Orthodox priest. As of
January 1984 “ecumenical prayer
processions” had been organized in
Zagreb with participation of
Catholics, Orthodox, Evangelists and
Baptists. The Prayer Movement of
Christian Women had been functioning
in Vojvodina since 1977 assembling
Reformists and Catholics (founders),
Greek Catholics, Evangelists and
Methodists (Kolarić, 1991:181).
Influential,
radical anti-ecumenical theologians
within the Serbian Orthodox Church
were undermining inter-religious
cooperation. One of most influential
among them was former professor of
the Faculty of Theology Justin
Popović who lived in isolation in
the Monastery of Celije in the
vicinity of Valjevo. His epistle
published in Paris in 1971 and his
study of ecumenism published in
Greece in 1974 resounded on all
sides. He condemned both groups of
the ecumenical movement: the
so-called “Geneva ecumenism” and
“Roman ecumenism;” he argued that
ecumenism was possible only if all
Christians would accept the Eastern
Orthodox teachings and in no other
way. Another influential
anti-ecumenical theologian of the
Serbian Orthodox Church was Nikolaj
Velimirović. They both made a point
of criticizing humanism, European
civilization, the spirit of
materialism, etc.
Justin Popović’s
student and one of leading SPC
theologians Atanasije Jevtić is also
among strong opponents of
inter-religious cooperation. In
1975, as a professor at the Faculty
of Theology in Belgrade, he stood
against an ecumenical conference and
ecumenical prayers. Apart from a few
exceptions, SPC theologians shared
his view though it had never been an
official stance of the SPC (Radić,
2007:291).
At a meeting
between Archbishop of Zagreb
Cardinal Franjo Šeper and Patriarch
German in Sremski Karlovci in late
June 1968, the Cardinal suggested
establishment of a mixed committee
of the Orthodox and Catholics tasked
with solving the problems of mixed
marriages. In September 1985
Patriarch German accepted this
initiative but the first meeting of
the committee scheduled in 1986
never took place as in the meantime
a delegation of SPC temporarily left
the Fourth Meeting of the Commission
for Dialogue between Orthodox and
Catholic Churches in Bari (Italy)
held in May-June 1986 in protest
against alleged proselytism by the
Catholic Church and Vatican’s
alleged recognition of the
Macedonian Orthodox Church (Kolarić,
1991:182).
Inter-faculty
symposiums assembling
representatives of the Catholic
Theological Faculty in Zagreb, the
Faculty of Theology in Ljubljana and
the Orthodox Theological Faculty in
Belgrade had been organized since
1974. The Ninth Ecumenical Symposium
in the autumn of 1990 was held
without theologians from Zagreb
Kolarić 1991:183). The same year the
SPC refused to participate in the
“ecumenical prayer procession in
Zagreb.”
The polemic with
the Glas Koncila (Voice of Council)
Atanasije Jevtić started in autumn
1988 had flared up in the meantime.
And it was in 1990 that the magazine
started running fiery articles about
the number of victims of the
Jasenovac concentration camp, the
massacre of the Serbs in Livno, etc.
A press release by
the conference of Serbian Orthodox
bishops and clergy on the territory
of the Republic of Croatia held in
September 1990 quotes that the
Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia
works under “most aggravated, almost
invasive circumstances” and blames
for it Croatia’s state authorities.
It also accuses the Glas Koncila and
the Catholic Church of their open
support to the Croatian Democratic
Community /HDZ/, and protests
against ill-treatment of Serbian
Orthodox people in Croatia.
According to some
sources, in late May 1989 Cardinal
Kuharić initiated a dialogue between
the two churches; the SPC Synod
responded affirmatively in late
June, but no further reaction by the
Catholic Church ensued (Radić,
2002:319).
The SPC mostly
criticized the Catholic Church for
the support its press, the Radio
Vatican and some Catholic
representatives were giving to
Albanians’ demand for autonomy of
Kosovo, Vatican’s support to the
Macedonian Orthodox Church, a
campaign for beatification of
Alojzije Stepinac, including the
polemic about the number of
Ustashi’s victims in the Jasenovac
concentration camp, and the Serbs’
suffering in NDH. The question of
the Pope’s possible visit to
Yugoslavia was also opened in the
early 1980s.
Dignitaries of the
two churches have met more than once
during the wars on the territory of
socialist Yugoslavia, and issued
joint appeals for peace. Patriarch
Pavle and Cardinal Kuharić met in
1992 in Sremski Karlovci and a year
later in Slavonski Brod. In late
September 1992 the Conference of
European Churches and the Council of
European Bishopric Conference
arranged a meeting between Patriarch
Pavle and Cardinal Kuharić in
Chateau Bossey near Geneva; the
meeting called for immediate end of
conflicts. Reis-ul-ulema Jakub
Selimoski could not attend the
meeting being a hostage to the siege
of Sarajevo. In late November of the
same year he, Patriarch Pavle and
the then Archbishop of Sarajevo
Vinko Puljić met in Zurich and
issued a joint appeal (Knežević et
al., 2014:9).
A RETROSPECTIVE: THE ROLE OF SPC IN
PROTECTING
SERBIAN NATIONAL INTERESTS IN
YUGOSLAVIA
Throughout its
history the SPC has been closely
connected with the state,
financially dependent on it and
poorly resistant to its pressure.
Two centuries of Serbia’s modern
history were marked by
authoritarianism, which actually
remained as the Kingdom of
SCS/Yugoslavia’s official policy for
all religious communities, including
the Serbian Orthodox Church. The
period 1937-41 is the only interval
in the SPC-state history when the
church was allowed to stand against
the state or act as its counterpart
(Marković, 2005:168). The conflict
over a concordat revealed the SPC’s
influence was strong enough to make
it possible for it to confront the
state when it took that its vital
interests were jeopardized, and that
influence was testified by the part
it played in the putsch of March 27,
1941.
Because of the
role it has traditionally played in
defining national identity of the
Serbian people, and its involvement
in the administration, which it had
always been in symbiosis with
(Vukomanović, 2001:103), the Serbian
Orthodox Church was not building its
political identity independently and
separately from the identities of
state and nation. Once the Kingdom
of SCS/Yugoslavia was established,
the Serbian Orthodox Church,
“engulfed in its glorious tradition
and devotion to the state to the
creation of which it has contributed
so much, could not understand that
the new state was no longer Serbia
and that its own, nation-building
role could was no longer what it
used to be” (Slijepčević, 2002a:6).
Since 1918 there have been “two
different state-building principles”
in Yugoslavia: one by which it was
seen as an extended Kingdom of
Serbia and the other taking
Yugoslavia as a community of South
Slav peoples. Considering itself a
religious and national guarding of
the Serbian people, the SPC
advocated the first principle
(Radić, 1995:324; 2002:337). Having
identified itself fully with Serbia
as a state and the Serbs as a
nation, the SPC stood for a national
rather than just a religious
institution; to it, Yugoslavia meant
loss of statehood and national
identity of the Serbian people.
Identification of nation with
religion – or ethnicity with creed –
rests on the belief is deep-rooted
in national being and that nation
could not survive without its
church. This symbiosis between
“ecclesistical and political
nationalism” ensures a
transcendental value and significant
to the nation itself (Vukomanović,
2001:101).
In the aftermath
of the WWII – disorganized and
dwindled by the war, materially
destroyed, left without
international backing and mortgaged
by Serbian hegemonism – the Serbian
Orthodox Church found itself for the
first time in a totally secular
system which had no ear for its
historical merits and national
significance; on the contrary, it
stigmatized these characteristics as
socially unwelcome. In the second
half of the 20th century the Serbian
Orthodox Church was boiled down to
its basic function – true, a reduced
one – and its functioning was placed
under control (Perović, 2004:124).
Atheization was
launched shortly after the end of
the WWII and had a significant role
in legitimizing the new socialist
order; it was meant to de-politicize
and de-nationalize traditional
ethnic and religious conflicts
characteristic of the Kingdom of
SCS/Yugoslavia. At the beginning the
effects of atheization were barely
radical considering traditional
churches’ deep roots in national
beings of South Slav peoples and
conventional religiousness of the
masses. It was only in the mid-1950s
that these effects became visible.
In saying this one should not ignore
major structural changes taking
place in the society at the same
time: modernization of a traditional
society, systemic and massive
industrialization, urbanization and
deagrarianization.
The effects of
atheization and secularization were
the biggest in traditionally
predominant Eastern Orthodox
regions; in other words, it turned
out that Eastern Orthodoxy was least
resistant to the state’s
interventionism. According to
Dragoljub Đorđević, three factors
that have vitally influenced “the
general ambiance” of secularization
of Eastern Orthodox religiousness
were main reasons why people
“distanced themselves from the
church:” the hardships of the WWII;
the Bolshevik regime that has not
applied the same yardstick to all
religions and religious communities
so that they rated differently in
the distribution of the state’s
grace; and weaknesses within the
Church itself as an institution
(Đorđević and Đurović, 1994:221). To
this ambience the authors add
another two specific factors
stimulating secularization of the
Serbs: ideologization of social
relations; and, atheist education
and raising children (Blagojević,
2005:177).
This paper has
already stated the Serbian Orthodox
Church’s “martyrdom” during the
WWII. However, the argument about
some religions having been
privileged in comparison with the
Orthodox at the time of socialist
Yugoslavia – in other words that on
the territories of Slovenian and
Croatian Catholicism political,
systematic stigmatization of
believers had not been as manifest
as in the case of the Orthodox –
necessitates specific historical
research to be taken as quite
sustainable (Blagojević, 2005:177).
Given that before and after Yugoslav
integrations the Serbian Orthodox
Church had been and was the biggest
religious community with the
stronger national trait, the biggest
flock, the strongest territorial
jurisdiction and traditionally
connected with the Serbian
statehood, no wonder that it was the
one the state had to hold the
tightest rein on; and the pressure
on it was probably bigger than on
other confessions, proportionally
with its social power. Ever since
the Corfu Conference and the
principle of religious equality it
adopted, the thesis about
discrimination of the SPC has been
promoted. “In the document whereby
foundations of a new Yugoslav state
were established and at the
initiative by Nikola Pašić, Eastern
Orthodoxy and so the Serbian church
too was sacrificed in the name of
the principle of religious equality.
Three religions, regardless of how
much each had done for the safeguard
of national identity and
state-building were placed in the
same basket” (Perić, 1999:192).
The
above-mentioned argument, most
important for interpretation of the
reasons behind obvious
desecularization of traditionally
Orthodox territories can be further
clarified by internal weaknesses of
Orthodoxy Ernst Benz wrote about.
Namely, Benz quotes four weaknesses,
i.e. threats to the structure of an
Orthodox church: the state’s
supremacy over it vs. the idealistic
Orthodox dogma about “harmony” or
“symphony” between the two;
predominance of national-church
consciousness or conflation compared
with Ecumenism; liturgical
isolationism, i.e. predominance of
liturgical-sacramental ceremonies
over preaching; and,
transcendentalism, i.e. transcendent
values surpassing worldly ones that
are therefore neglected (Benz,
1991:63-65). To this Milan
Vukomanović adds another three
reasons that may explain why
secularization was so successful on
territories of Orthodoxy:
perseverance of Serbian pagan
heritage; interwoven religious and
national factors; and,
conservativism of the Serbian
Orthodox Church, i.e. the church
that has no ear for modernization
processes and would not adjust
itself to the post-industrial
civilization (Vukomanović,
2001:103).
On Catholic
confessional territories in
mid-1970s and almost a decade later
on Orthodox ones the trend towards
ending atheization and first signs
of de-atheization can be discerned.
Growing political and socioeconomic
crisis in the 1980s and worsening
material situation of younger
generations provided a welcome
background to the said tendency.
According to Dragomir Pantić, deeper
and deeper social crisis that
specifically affected younger
generations, mostly unemployed and
desperate about the future resulted
in renewed religiousness among the
youth in the second half of the
1980s.
However,
territorial and national
homogenization of the youth in which
church-religious complex emerged as
actor of compensation and national
safeguard is also a major factor to
be taken into consideration.
Ethno-religious legitimization of
newly emerged states on the
territory of Yugoslavia influenced
the most mass resumption of
tradition, religion, national
identity, national heroes and
state-building ideas (Blagojević,
2005:180).
There is a larger,
supra-national context to the growth
in religiousness and especially
people’s growing identification with
religion that should also not to be
neglected: general political and
cultural pluralization of societies
during and after collapse of
socialism at global and, notably, at
European level; general tendency
towards desecularization throughout
Eastern Europe; collapse of
generally accepted values;
relatively growing differentiation
of spiritual offers at religious
market; different spiritual needs of
many people; the need for God in the
search for happiness, hope and
consolation, etc.
In the early
1980s, at the time the question of
Kosovo was raised, a group of
younger theologians of the Serbian
Orthodox Church stepped on the scene
calling for a more active church
instead of a lethargic one. Since
1981 the clergy and theologians have
more and more frequently and with
growing intensity criticized top
dignitaries for being insufficiently
energetic in their attitude towards
the authorities. They were issuing
appeals, signing petitions to and
calling dignitaries to have the
church abandon its isolationism and
become actively present in the
society. Playing on Kosovo as an
unsettled problem in Serbia and
Yugoslavia, the Serbian Orthodox
Church offered itself as a
stronghold of traditional national
security and center of national life
as it had been for centuries and as
the only institution that “has never
in history let down the Serbs.” Some
bishops were using Kosovo – and the
church’s justified concern for
sacral facilities there, the Serbs’
moving out of it and decreasing
number of believers – as a key
argument for the church’s return to
the public scene. Stands about
“tragic position of the Serbian
people in Yugoslavia” were more and
more frequently given voice to.
National
continuity, cult of national and
religious heroes and, generally,
national history, national letter
and traditional customs and values
are nourished under the auspices of
the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Deepening of the general crisis and
disintegration of the system turned
Orthodoxy growingly important to
cultural and national identity of
the Serbian people, their
homogenization and identification
vs. other national and religious
groups; all this created the
atmosphere in which citizens were
turning to the church and religion
to express some of their latent
dissatisfaction, thus strengthening
political significance of the
former. The church so became a
refuge to a part of political and
cultural opposition, and invested
legitimacy in a part of nationally
oriented intelligentsia.
The Serbian
Orthodox Church has been claiming
that it had always been the only one
standing for the Serbian people and
had never abandoned them; and as
such it was above the state and a
supreme moral arbiter whose
intentions and stands were not to be
questioned (Radić, 2002:338). The
church and Serbian Orthodoxy in
their Slavophiliac version of
European organic-organicist thought,
undisputed unity and St. Sava
teaching present themselves as the
basic source of a nation and a
privileged guardian of national
tradition, culture, historical
experience, language, etc. (Radić,
2007:293).
On the eve of
Yugoslav wars, especially in the
period 1989-91, the Serbian Orthodox
Church played an important role in
mobilizing the public opinion for
Serbian national interests promoted
by the political leadership with
Slobodan Milošević at its head. The
church’s political comeback went
hand in hand with the rise of
nationalistic elites as testified by
“Serbian Draft Church-National
Program” the Voice of Church
publicized in 1989. Two years later
this church mouthpiece wrote not
that there could be “no strong state
without a strong church” which
preconditioned the existence of the
nation itself. “While renewing our
spiritual foundations we should
start from the fact that Orthodoxy
had given birth to Serbhood, which
could not be kept alive without it.
The Serbs who are no longer Orthodox
believers are no longer Serbs at
all.”
Importance of
religious traditions for the
safeguard of ethnic and cultural
identity led to emergence of
religion as a political fact.
Transformation (the so-called
transition) of the Yugoslav society
that, among other things, implied
liberalization of relations between
post-communist countries and
religious communities in the period
of powerful rise of nationalism
opened once again the door to the
use of religion for political
purpose. Renewed religiousness was
in the function of legitimizing,
homogenizing and mobilizing nations
and states. New political elites
that were using religion for their
own legitimization and as a tool for
mobilizing wide strata of society
were constituted on the one hand,
while on the other religious
communities recognized the comeback
of nationalism as an opportunity for
the comeback of their own after five
decades of living at the margins of
secularized, atheist society.
Nationalistic programs brought
religious and ruling political
structures closer together.
Atanasije Jevtić’s presence at the
mass rally in Belgrade testified
that the church and political elites
think as one; what tied them
together became even stronger when
the church said amen to the
nationalistic program embodied in
the Memorandum of the Serbian
Academy of Arts and Sciences (SANU).
Monopolization of
victims, mythologization and
glorification of national history,
and sacralization of politics and
history predominated the wording of
the church-political national
program. Organization of or
participation in all sorts of
memorial services for unearthing of
bones of the Serbs killed in the
WWII, processions carrying bodily
remnants of Prince Lazar through
several eparchies, transport of
Nikolaj Velimirović’s bodily
remnants from America to Serbia,
etc., were meant to evoke ancient
fears and myths in the service of
mobilization and homogenization of
Serbian ethnos on the territory of
Yugoslavia. Sources for
understanding Serbian modern
nationalism were in the writings of
Nikolaj Velimirović whom the SPC
clergy most frequently quotes in
their addresses. Extracts from his
best known works “Nationalism of St.
Sava” and “Messages to Serbian
people through a dungeon hole”
became the ABC’s of Serbian
nationalism and phyletism, and the
church outdid itself to make his
bodily remnants in 1991 returned “at
long last” from America.
Though the 1991-95
Yugoslav war was not religious par
excellence since religious have not
nominally brought about conflicts,
the role and responsibility of
religious communities in the armed
disintegration of the federal state
is still under reconsideration. The
SPC dignitaries has insisted on
monopolizing the role of a victim
and the argument that for the second
time in its history the Serbian
people experienced genocide, as well
as on a defensive warfare and just
war. They have argued that the one
and only, and final solution to the
national question was pan-Serbian
unification, i.e. the safeguard of
the SPC’s consolidated spiritual
jurisdiction.
During the war the
SPC frequently oscillated between
declarative ecumenical, anti-war
stances and actual support for
ethno-nationalistic political
forces, especially in Republika
Srpska. It strongly condemned crimes
but interpreted those committed by
the Serbian side as excesses.
Appeals for peace, negotiations and
a search for just solutions marked
as a rule the discourse of church
representatives but their notion of
“a just war” usually implied only
what was in the interest of the
Serbian nation. The Archbishopric
did not exactly spoke as one about
many issues, but the absence of its
clearly defined stand about ongoing,
chaotic developments caused many
individual and collective pro-war
actions not/done in “the name of
faith.” The clergy blessing
para-military troops in
battlefields, the pictures they took
with arms in their hand and, more
often, with “Serbian heroes” went
hand in hand with the theory of
“defensive warfare” or “just” war.
In his address to
Lord Carrington and governmental
officials in 1991 the Patriarch
himself said that Serbs would “fight
with arms to remain in the same
state with the core of the Serbian
people” and that the state had to
“protect Serbian brothers in Croatia
by all legitimate means, including
armed self-defense in all Serbian
regions.” The Appeal to Serbian
People and the Public Worldwide the
SPC Bishopric Conference issue in
1995 quoted, “Today, as people and
the Church, deep-rooted in the
tormented land of Bosnia-Herzegovina
we cannot accept the decisions on
percentages and maps imposed on us
in Geneva that would deprive us of
our Žitomislići at the Neretva
River, the Unity Church in Mostar,
the Sopotnica Church at the Drina
River, the Krka Monastery or the
monasteries of Krupa in Dalmatia,
Ozren and Vozuće in Bosnia,
Prebilovica in Herzegovina, and
Jasenovac in Slavonia.”
Relations between
the two biggest religious
organizations in Yugoslavia – the
Serbian Orthodox Church and the
Catholic Church – were of major
importance to the multiethnic and
multireligious country traditionally
marked by ethno-confessional
identification wherein those
relations crucially influenced those
between the two biggest nations.
Neither of the two churches is
directly responsible for starting
the wars and the way they were
wagged, but their inability to
engage in a dialogue influenced the
general atmosphere in the country
and opened the question of their
moral responsibility and the
misbalance between their roles as
Christian and national institutions.
* * *
Although communism
is mostly blamed – especially by
circles within the church – as the
main cause and pillar of
secularization, the fact remains
that the idea of secularism has
practically overwhelmed the Serbian
society throughout the 20th century.
Serbian intelligentsia, educated in
the West, accepted secular
principles spreading over the
society, which the church and clergy
were not capable of confronting this
intelligentsia. Secular principles
became more visible with the
establishment of the first Yugoslav
state only to be given, after the
WWII, a clear-cut and rigid
institutional form. Even since
unification against the new
sociopolitical background the
Serbian Orthodox Church has done all
in its power to position itself
vis-à-vis growing secularism; while
neglecting its primary function as
time went by it was trying to
restore its influence and privileges
by non-religious means.
Like Peter Berger
or, more precisely, Vyacheslav
Karpov, the process of
desecularization the initial shapes
of which were recognizable in
Yugoslavia in the early 1980s –
while its scope and effects are
visible to this very day in all
post-Yugoslav societies, could be
characterized as
counter-secularization, i.e. a
desecularizing process that implies
the effects of secularization and
emerges as a reaction to the past or
ongoing secularization or
atheization, the process directly
connected with specific secular
tendencies.
All components
(tendencies) of
counter-secularization have been
growingly evident ever since the
beginning of the process of
desecularization: 1) institutions
secularized in the past are closer
and closer to religious norm, both
formally and informally; 2)
religious beliefs and practices are
revived; 3) religion is back in the
public sphere (deprivatization); 4)
religious contents in a variety of
cultural sub-systems (arts,
philosophy, literature, etc.) are
revived; and, 5) changes in “social
substrate” are connected with
religion (e.g., demographic changes
that have to do with religion,
redefinition of territories and
population by religious criteria,
etc.) (Karpov, 2010:250). In his
analysis of religious changes in
post-communism Milan Vukomanović
also pointed out this “reactionary”
character of desecularization;
during revitalization of religion in
Yugoslavia negative politicization
of religion shifted towards
affirmative politicization. After
half a century long process “turning
politics into religion,” i.e. forced
“hyper-politicization” of almost all
aspects of social life, including
negatively ideologized religion, the
course of the same process changed.
The “return” to traditional
religion, even to conservative
religiousness, emerged as a major
factor of the safeguard of national
identity, while high value attached
to tradition – worship of national
and religious past – led to
political misuse of the tie between
religion and nation (Vukomanović,
2001:99). Analyzing “desecularized
regimes” Karpov pointed to the same
potential function of the process of
desecularization; he specifically
put his finger on the case of
regimes that support counter-secular
tendencies for nonreligious reasons:
religion as a resource of strength
or defense of threatened culture was
used in the conflict stricken
territory of the former socialist
Yugoslavia for the purpose of
homogenization of national-religious
groups.
The Serbian
Orthodox Church stepped on the scene
as a staunch “activist of
desecularization;” “actors of
desecularization” responded to the
establishment of a “desecularized
regime” mostly in two ways: by
converting to “legitimate” religion
and by ritual “belonging without
religion.” Srđan Vrcan (Vrcan, 1986)
and Dragoljub Đorđević had also
indicated this traditional and
conventional tie with religion and
the church, as well as the fact that
religious belonging was not the same
as religiousness; the latter
specified three almost identical
forms of confessional
identification: 1) traditional
connection to a particular religion
that is nonreligious because of
religion’s identification with
ethnos but with clear consciousness
about confessional background, and
2) recognition of one’s confessional
origin, “religion by birth,” despite
the lack in rational consciousness
about it and nonreligiousness
(Đorđević, 2000: 164).
It would be hard
to deny that the Serbian Orthodox
Church – especially in the last two
decades of the 20th century – was
more a national-political than a
religious institution; having
neglected it primary duties it
prioritized the struggle for
national interests over religious
and universalistic values. The
Serbian Orthodox Church accomplished
full desecularization in Serbia
after the period of blocked
transformation when it formally and
finally managed to realize numbers
of preconditions defined in the 1989
“Serbian Draft Church-National
Program.”
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