RELIGION: Serbian Church Advances into Public Space

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic Reprint | | Print |

Vesna Peric Zimonjic

BELGRADE, May 8 2007 (IPS) - After decades in the shadows of communist rule, the Serbian Orthodox Church is fighting for a bigger presence in public life.

The attempt came into the spotlight again after the duties of the Patriarch were entrusted by the Holy Synod to the oldest ranking church official, Metropolitan Jovan last week, because Patriarch Pavle (93) is of frail health. The Synod is roughly the equivalent of church government.

As the church prepares for a Holy Assembly of Bishops May 14, speculation is mounting whether a new patriarch will be elected.

Some misgivings have arisen over any move to replace the present Patriarch. “The Patriarch, who is the pride and moral pivot of the Serbian people and the Serbian Church, should remain the head (of the church),” Bishop Lavrentije said in a public statement. “Replacing him would mean drawing the wrath of God and wrath of nation on bishops.”

Many Serbs consider the fragile Patriarch a holy man because of his ascetic lifestyle and impeccable religious conduct. But others seek a more active head, in times when the role of the Church itself is being disputed.

“The church is now taking the role which the communist party had in this country since the end of World War II,” religion analyst Mirko Djordjevic told the popular B92 radio. “This is something that the church has never done before, demanding a presence in all spheres of life.”

Communist rule continued in Serbia since the end of World War II until the fall of former leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

In the 1990s, Milosevic renamed the Serbian Communist Party the Socialist Party, and relaxed relations with the church, which had been pushed aside in the decades preceding his coming to power.

The church was re-introduced into events at the national level, with bishops attending state receptions and parliamentary sessions, and publicly blessing new construction projects. Some even insisted that the Darwin theory of evolution be omitted from biology curricula in schools. Religious education was introduced from grade one.

“This happened not because Milosevic was a secretly religious man, although his father was a theology teacher,” analyst Desimir Tosic told IPS. “He saw this as a possibility for manipulating the national feelings of Serbs.” Serbs have been Orthodox Christians since the 13th century.

The Serbian Orthodox Church took a stand close to the official Belgrade stand in the bloody wars that tore former Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s. It supported the “defence of endangered Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia”, much like the official propaganda of Milosevic.

More than 100,000 victims of the wars were mostly non-Serbs, killed by Serb security forces or paramilitary, but the church did not express much sympathy for them. In the eyes of the Serbian church, Serbs remain the only victims of the wars.

Such a stand, both by the former regime and the church, prevented many Serbs from realising what had really happened in the wars, and diminished chances of reconciliation with their neighbours.

In Bosnia church priests blessed Serb units before the forces took action against Bosniak Muslims. In the eyes of the church, the war in Bosnia was a war against non-Christians. In Croatia it was religious war of another kind, because Croats are Catholics.

Some priests were filmed carrying automatic rifles, and openly calling for “volunteers” to come to the battlefields in Bosnia or Croatia. Some believe the church is providing shelter for one of the most wanted war criminals, Radovan Karadzic, who has been in hiding more than 10 years.

Karadzic is wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) for war crimes against non-Serbs in Bosnia. The ICTY has accused him of leading the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, and for the siege of Sarajevo that took more than 10,000 lives.

But the church is proud of “the return of Serbs to their faith.” Since the 1990s more and more Serbs are engaging priests at weddings and in baptising of children.

Priests are regularly seen now at funeral services, or blessing the traditional cake at homes when Serbs celebrate ‘slava’, a feast dedicated to the family saint.

“Many factors have taken people back to the church,” former dean of the Belgrade Theology Faculty Radovan Bigovic told IPS. “It has more to do with the modern civilisation that provides no spiritual satisfaction or comfort to the people.”

But although almost 95 percent of Serbs declare themselves “of Orthodox religion” and almost as many say they “celebrate Christmas and Easter,” one survey suggests that only seven percent are true believers, and more than 45 percent never go to church.