The
Political Aspirations
of
the Serbian Orthodox Church
With the coming of
Milošević into power the public scene has been reopened for the Serbian
Orthodox Church (SOC) after five decades of the communist era. The aim was to
obtain the support of the Church in the realization of the national program,
and, indeed, the Church played the role it had been assigned. One the on hand,
it strongly encouraged the rise ethno-nationalistic spirit combined with
aspirations for the “Greater Serbia” project on all levels of the society:
religious and national feelings of citizens have been manipulated for overtly
political purposes. On the other hand, the Church openly backed the regime of
Slobodan Milošević. However, its comeback failed to reach an institutional
form, due to an ambiguous attitude of the Milošević regime towards the
communist ideological heritage, which, among other things, took the secular
character of the state as granted.
With the overthrow of
Milošević and the establishment of the new regime, which explicitly and
manifestly based its legitimacy on anti-communism, the ideological obstacles
for the legalization of the ongoing process of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s
public reappearance were removed, and the activities leading to an
institutional shift from the secular principle on all levels of social and
public life accelerated.
1. Rebuff of the Principle
of Separation of Church
and State and the Violation of
the Freedom and Equality
of Religious Beliefs
The redefinition of the
relations between the Church and the State started when religious instruction
in a dogmatic form became a part of public school curricula. Practically
overnight, at the very beginning of the 2001/2002 school year a decree issued
by the Serbian government in July 2001 instituted religious instruction in
elementary and secondary schools. The decision was taken in spite of strong
public opposition, without any preparatory trainings
of instructors, serious considerations of such programs, and was made formal
through a decree, which seriously breached constitutions of both Serbia and FRY
in several ways. Starting with the principle of separation of church and state
itself, and then by a flagrant violation of the provision guaranteeing the
privacy of religious feelings and the freedom of consciousness, up to a factual
abolishment of equality of confessions, by granting the right of religious
instruction only to confessions explicitly listed in
the decree. Immediately after stepping into the schools, the Church entered the
Army. Then a request for the integration of the Faculty of Theology into the
State University followed, as well as a request
for the restitution of the Church’s property. These two requests are still
waiting for a legal solution.
Both the Church and republic
and federal ministries of religion made it clear that they regarded all these
measures only as the first step towards the rejection of the principle of
separation of church and state, proclaimed by the Constitution, and towards
establishment of some form of unity between the two. Greece and its model of
the state church are often being set as an ideal. “The State should proclaim
the Serbian Eastern Orthodoxy as official religion, that is, our state should
be verified as a Serbian Orthodox one, though other religions should have the
right to exist, but not in the same rank as the Serbian Orthodoxy and only the
ones the Serbian Orthodox Church does not regard as satanic” (Office of
Religious Instruction within the Patriarchate).[1] The
former dean of the Faculty of Theology believes that “religion is not a private
emotional feeling, as it is being explained here”[2],
while in an official address to the public, the Serbian Orthodox Church sharply
attacks the point of view according to which religious feelings are in the domain
of an individual’s privacy, while calling proponents of the secular state “followers of the Satan.”[3]
The former FRY Minister of
Religion, Bogoljub Šijaković, also rejects the model of separation of
church and state as being in conflict with Serbian tradition and proposes a
solution, which incorporates elements of different models of unity – from state
church, through “symphony” between the state and the church, up to the model of
acknowledged churches as was the case in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The
Patriarch himself prefers the “symphony” by saying, “We believe that the best
relation between state and church is the one that used to be, that of the
symphony – harmony between the state, that is, the society and the church.”[4] This
model of the state-church relations shaped in Byzantium and evolved during many
years into a system giving holy sanction to the national state, in modern times
became the foundation for the development of the “church nationalism”.
There are individuals within
the SOC itself who oppose the idea of the unity of state and church as an
anachronism harmful to the interest of the church. “Attempts still exist here
to build a divine state according to the Byzantine model. The Byzantine
symphony today is a total absurd and an obstacle that prevents the Church to
take its proper place,” believes father Nenad Ilić, adding that the Church
has to be separated from the State and politics in order to “resume its genuine
meaning”.[5] It is
hard to find out whether such opinions are supported in the ranks of higher
clergy. In public addresses, these voices are extremely rare.
Although the final model for
the state-church relation, namely the fundamental reorganization of this model,
cannot be established without a revision of the Constitution, the rebuff of the
principle of separation of church and state has in fact already taken place in
an indirect way through the model of acknowledged churches.
The Serbian government’s
decree on the introduction of religious instruction has already established the
category of “traditional churches and religious communities” by listing the
churches and religions (seven in total). Unprecedented in the existing legal
system in Serbia, this category discriminates other confessions. In the
meantime, the concept of acknowledged churches – named as “traditional,” “big churches recognized worldwide,”
etc. – has gained legitimacy in different ways and on all levels, and is
practically not being questioned any more, except when the number of churches
the State should acknowledge is concerned. Advocating the restitution of the
Church properties the Serbian Minister of Religions acknowledges the right of
restitution only to “traditional churches and religious communities, which are
seven.”[6] And
the request of the Serbian Orthodox Church for the access
to the radio broadcast system signed by the Patriarch, mentions other
“historical, that is traditional religious communities” without naming them.[7]
Pravoslavlje, a periodical published by
the SOC, goes a step further, and proposes passing of a “law on the Church”
instead of a law on the freedom of religion. The magazine advocates the view
that it is wrong to neglect “the fact that the Church is one and unique” and
treat it the same way as “everything that was ever called a religious
community, all that was created literally yesterday at a meeting of a secret
organization, a cult, or by people who have wavered from the true religious
course…or are, moreover, susceptible to religious terrorism…”[8]
This understanding of the
freedom of religion is widespread in the circles within the SOC. Numerous churches and religious communities, mostly
Protestant, are considered religious sects or cults. Intense intolerance, even
unveiled aggression towards these “cults” persists. “Serbian people are subject
to systematic and planned evil, as has been justly observed by Bishop Nikolaj:
this is a spiritual genocide committed by numerous cults - Protestant, satanic
and those coming from the Far East,” says Pravoslavlje.[9] A
fear that a Western conspiracy might commit a spiritual genocide of the Serbian
people is being spread via this periodical, fear of genocide to be carried out
by religious cults. “There is a plan to systematically cover the whole area of
Serbia and Montenegro with a net of cults.”[10] Furthermore,
“It is not a question here about something as an Adventist church… It is about
the Adventists known to our people as the cult of Sabbatarians.” “The fact that
they emerged and… are more and more frequently appearing in the media” is, in
fact “a God’s sign and an alarm bell for the Serbian Orthodox Church, its
followers and its clergy”. This is similar to the “spontaneous response” to the
occurrence of “cults” and their “avant-garde propaganda” after the World War I,
when the “famous Prayer Movement” emerged. This “greatest and most magnificent
wonder in the modern history of our church”, the “Prayer Movement, was
organized and led by St. Bishop Nikolaj.” “Maybe these new activities of the
cults … will give birth to a new Nikolaj whom we need today more then ever
before,” says the priest and editor-in-chief of The Voice of the Church radio
outlet and magazine, Ljubomir Ranković.[11]
The reference to Bishop
Nikolaj as the highest authority in the Serbian Orthodoxy is characteristic for
the communication between the SOC and its followers. Bishop Nikolaj is a cult
personality for the most conservative and nowadays predominant circles of the
SOC.[12] Their major characteristics are an anti-Western stance on
all issues and nationalism, with elements of fascism. The remains of Bishop
Nikolaj were transferred to Serbia in May 1991, in the days when Serbia started
a war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. This was in accordance with
the attempts of Milosevic’s regime to mobilize the nationalistic euphoria and
the pro-war feelings more effectively. After October 5, 2000, the SOC promotes
Bishop Nikolaj even more than it used to. He is being qualified “as the
greatest Serb after Saint Sava,” and turned into a myth as “a symbol of Serbdom
and Orthodoxy.” For example, on March 24, the anniversary of the beginning of
NATO intervention in Serbia, the Church, in the presence of the top military
official, General Nebojsa Pavkovic, unveils a monument to this controversial
bishop in the Soko monastery[13]; to
a bishop who had publicly shown his respect of Hitler and overt anti-Semitism.[14]
Recently, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia and Montenegro,
drawing attention to the rise of anti-Semitism after October 5, pinpointed
Bishop Nikolaj’s book “Words to the Serbian
People behind Dungeon Windows” as the “the most disgusting anti- Semitism”
where Jews “are the synonym for the Devil.”[15]
The current glorification of
Bishop Nikolaj has, to a great extent, its rationale in the attempts of the
Church to obtain a special place within the state. Namely, reference to Nikolaj
is the usual “argumentation” the SOC uses to disqualify other churches as cults
and, in fact, to advocate the idea about a state church.
In view of such an
understanding of freedom of religion by the SOC, an understanding that
ultimately leads to a denial of this very freedom, frequent outbursts of
intolerance towards other confessions did not come as a surprise, including
such violent acts as the one of last December in front of the Patriarchate, when
followers of the Church of England were prevented from attending the Christmas
service.[16]
2.
Pretensions to a Moral and Ideological Monopoly
on the Society
After the October 5, with
strong and manifest support from top FRY officials, especially President
Vojislav Kostunica, the SOC is growingly imposed as the supreme moral and
ideological arbiter – starting with the education of children up to the overall
cultural
and civilizational orientation of the society. The moral
values the Church promotes are, almost without exception, characterized by
collectivism, xenophobia and anti-Western feelings. Furthermore, the way these
values are promoted is marked by a high degree of intolerance and even
aggression.
The SOC is particularly vigilant in its
attempts to be the arbiter in education. Its standpoint is that “to separate
the Church from school is the same as to separate a mother from her child.”[17]
Moreover, all those opposing the idea of religious dogma as the moral
foundation of education are “followers of the Satan.”[18]
In its confrontation with
the atheists, the SOC uses the hate speech in its “purest” form. Unrestrained
and straightforward methods the Church uses are to be attributed to the fact
that it relates atheism to communism and pro-Western feelings, the phenomena
that the Church believes have lost their legitimacy within the Serbian society
during the last fifteen years.
The journal Pravoslavlje says that “the Serbo-phobia and
the fight against God led by communist hordes… have created an enormous spiritual
wasteland among Serbs. In the tomb of the Serbian people, the SFRY, education
was founded on atheism… For centuries the love of God has marked the Serbian
nation… and today, we are a mindless crowd that can be manipulated and seduced
by any charlatan. With further Americanization we will become mercenaries of
the new age,” writes Pravoslavlje.[19]
In his Christmas epistle for
the year 2002, the Serbian Patriarch condemned atheist parents for “pushing
their own children on the road of false happiness and false freedom…” and
“destroying their children’s lives.”[20] Both
ministers of religions, the Serbian and the federal, joined the claims that
atheism was illegitimate. The acting Serbian minister, Vojislav
Milovanović, believes that atheism caused war, poverty and a “moral plunge
into the abyss,”[21]
while the ex-federal minister, Bogoljub
Šijaković, relates atheism to “the state of mind and psychological
heritage of a spiritually and morally disturbed society, we have lived in for
fifty years.”[22]
The Church places human
rights activists in the same company with atheists: like atheists, they are
related to communism, that is, “Titoism”. For the Federal Minister of
Religions, human rights activists are “political chameleons,” “who used to
persecute people for their faith in the name of communism and Titoism, and now
do the same in the name of human rights and European integration.”[23] The
Patriarch considers human rights activists to be “sinful minds”[24] –
which is similar to the way Bishop Nikolaj labeled individual rights and
freedoms as “some petty declarations of human rights..[25]
In the attempt to gain
control over the education, the Church shows great ambition, albeit
nervousness, intolerance and lack of control. The introduction of religious
instruction in public school curricula was not enough to satisfy its
pretensions to be the arbiter in moral issues of the society. The government of
Serbia became their main target, the Ministry of Education above all, since the
Church identified there a political option loyal to the principle of a secular
state. Namely, the Ministry had made it clear that the decision to introduce
religious instruction was unwelcome and contrary to the Church’s status, and a political favor resulting from the pressure by
the Church and political structures the Church leans on. The Serbian Orthodox
Church responded with insults and insinuations, the hate speech and anathema.
In this context, typical is
the statement by which the SOC Synod targeting the Serbian government because
of some controversial activities in the summer camps organized by the Ministry
of Education. Ill-willed interpretation of something unverified – and
misguiding, as it turned out later on – information about inappropriate conduct
of instructors had a conspicuously political role, whereby the Church was the
harshest critic of the government and the responsible Minister. “As long as
there is religious instruction, the gerrymandering shamelessness and satanic
immorality cannot impose their rule over human self-consciousness and become
the measure of humanity and human dignity.” In its statement, the Synod says,
“Ministers and educators who undermine the spiritual and moral values of their
own people and thus the universal moral values…are not only undeserving to
carry this honored name, but also have no the right to carry it”. The Synod
draws attention to the fact that “modern education and the development of a new
consciousness of high school students, things they are being taught in
educational workshops, are nothing but perfidious child brainwashing.” “In our
time, unfortunately, a marriage is made between the post-communist atheism and
the Western capitalist hedonism. From such a hideous marriage monsters and
freaks the world has never seen before are already being born. And all this under false pretensions of ‘new consciousness’, ‘a new
man’, ‘new order’ and ‘new community’. We are asking our new teachers
and educators whether they are aware of this danger that faces the modern man
and humanity? Or is it that some of them really do
want to direct the younger generation on this road to nowhere? Is it possible
that this was the essential reason for opposing the introduction of religious
instruction in the schools? And for imposing as a substitute, or alternate, the
so called civic education?” reads the statement of the Synod.[26]
The Montenegrin Metropolitan
Amfilohije Radovic adds his personal opinion to the statement of the Synod, by
sending a direct political message. Namely, in his opinion, the Civic Alliance
of Serbia (the political party the acting Minister of Education belongs to)
“like all other political parties, emerged from Tito’s mold.”[27]
Extreme intolerance to
everything that comes from the Western cultural and civilizational circles is
one of the most important messages that the SOC sends to its followers. It is
also the most noticeable trait of its rhetoric. In this, the SOC is entirely
consistent with its newly reborn idol, Bishop Nikolaj, who saw in the modern
history of Serbia a Western conspiracy to “transform the recently liberated
Serbian populace into the populace of the rotten West.”[28]
“Serbs in Europe, yes;
Europe among Serbs, God forbid!” makes a phrase that can be taken as the SOC’s
motto when it comes to its attitude towards the West.[29] “The
forces of Satan - conspiring, political, cultural, liberal, leftist
– are leading the NWO (New World Order), which is, beyond doubt… inspired by
the Satan.” The main source of all evil is America, where “a collapse of moral…
and mental health” took place. The whole West is under the influence of
“hellish forces…conspiracy against Christianity, a Godless culture.” The West
is dominated by “atheist psychology as the modern heresy, similar to the
Gnostic one,” claims Pravoslavlje
just to hopefully conclude that “amongst Serbs there
won’t be any disturbed individuals who would readily infect us with the deadly
malaise of Western culture. Let them and their progress remain at arm’s
length.”
This hope is accompanied by
fear - a fear from “a strategy of soft approach,” which was “established right
after the end of the World War II…, and which implies total and incontestable
acceptance of foreign values, foreign religion, foreign customs, foreign
economy, way of life and way of thinking, spiritual and other values as our own
values.”[30]
All these “foreign values” are often classified under the concept of “the new”
in the rhetoric of the SOC. One of the symbols of victory of the “soft
approach”, or “the new” is New Belgrade, which thus becomes an object of
hatred.
“New Belgrade is the biggest
Satanic experiment, the culmination of communist
exhibitionism… as such, it is a
tragedy, a spiritual gulag, a spiritual ‘Goli Otok’ (The Barren Island – a prison camp).” “The city of ‘the new’, new
schools, new kindergartens, new shops, a new Student City, a new Sports Hall,
new highway - for the new children, new students, new people. A city in the
desert, the city without churches, without a family, without a history, the
city of the Godless, unbaptized, de-Serbed, the city of dead souls… the city of
the future ‘Aryans’… the city where evil culminates.”[31]
An
undoubtedly patriarchal vision of the society promoted by the SOC is also
vividly expressed in a book by patriarch Pavle “Some Questions of our Faith” illustrative of the rejection of
“the new.”[32]
3.
Perception of the Society and the State
Anti-Western
feelings are followed by an adequate concept of the state and the society. Here
the SOC remains within the concept known as the “new Serbian right,” which is,
in fact, closest to organicism. Among Serbian theologians, this concept is most
consequently developed in the works of Bishop Nikolaj and Justin Popović. In
brief, this approach rejects individualism and embraces the principles of
collectivism and mutual solidarity or, in the Serbian variant of the tradition,
the “spirit of gathering” and the ethics pertinent to “a head of an orthodox
family.” According to organicist theory, the society represents an organism –
the “national organism,” individuals being nothing but “cells” that function to
the benefit of this organism. An optimal solution is the “organicist-orthodox
monarchy” based on the “God, the King, Family” triad.
This concept of society and
state is explicitly professed as ideal by the head of the SOC, Patriarch Pavle.
Besides the unity of the State and the Church (following the “symphony” model)
he professes the unity between the society and the state (“society, that is
state”), and thus negates any individualism. He also questions the value of the
multiparty system by posing a rhetorical question, “Are political parties
mature enough to secure an organic relation within the society, as in a body
where each organ performs its own function, to the benefit of the whole
organism? And, conversely, the organism has no other interest but the good of
each of its organs… The Church always strives for such an organic relation
within the society.”[33]
The Montenegrin Metropolitan
Amfilohije Radović voices the same stand. “Since the beginning of time
Serbs have been solving all their problems at gatherings… and thus it would be
good that the spirit of people’s getting together is renewed today. Parties are
of a newer date and imported to Serbs from the West, which may be dangerous to
us, who approach everything from a metaphysical standpoint. Decisions have to
be made in the head of the entire nation – only those decisions are farsighted
and far-reaching.”[34]
Identification of the
Serbian nation with the Serbian Orthodox Church serves to support the same
vision of the society and the state, thus adding another link in the organic
unity: state and church, society and state, nation and church.
“Since the beginning of time
the Serbian Church is the pillar of the national being. This has been denied by
communists,” that is by “international ideology”, which has “died away” – says
an editorial run in Pravoslavlje.[35]
Patriarch Pavle is even more explicit in his view that belonging to the SOC is
a necessary condition for belonging to the Serbian nation. “They say ‘I am a
Serb’, though if unbaptized, one cannot be a Serb,” says the Patriarch. This is
yet another reason why atheism is unacceptable. Simply, because, according to
Patriarch Pavle’s strict interpretation, a Serb cannot be an atheist.[36]
There are different opinions
in the SOC when it comes to the above issue, though such individuals are in the
minority. For example, professor at the Theological Faculty, father Vladan
Perišić, Ph.D., believes that the fact that “we came to the point when
nationalism became an affirmation of the Orthodox faith” is upsetting. “The
Church has already paid a high price for having identified itself with the nation, and it will continue to pay the same price if it
fails to eradicate the equality sign that is being put between the two.” The
Church should free itself from this “embrace” and return to its “mission of
witnessing the science of Christ, which does not know of nations” and where, as
written in the Gospel, “no Greeks or Jews exist.”[37]
4. The Church and Politics
In view of the activity of
the SOC in daily politics, its close connections with the institutions of
power, both civil and military, as well as its promotion by the media – one
could say that the conditions for the realization of strategic goals of the SOC
have never been more favorable. After it managed to return, under the
Milošević regime, to the political scene for the first time after forty
years, the Church came into the position after October 5, 2000 to finalize its
comeback by legalizing its new/old role. Significant multifold ties between the
Church and politics, already a characteristic of the Milošević regime, are
constantly growing stronger after the overthrow of October 5, 2000. The
presence of the Church in politics was stripped naked in its most brutal and
primitive form in the speech of Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović at the
memorial service for the murdered Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjić. The
Metropolitan abused his participation at the service to deliver a political
speech dominated by the rhetoric of conflict and hatred, xenophobia and isolationism
- the very opposite of the vision of modern, European Serbia the late Premier
strove for.
An active role in politics
is a constant of the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This fact is not
denied even by the Church itself. “The Church is not going to determine who is
going to rule this country, but it is going to support those new men who
understand the moment, the situation the nation is in, and show a way out of
the dead end” – this was how editors of Pravoslavlje
rationalized the Synod’s decision of the summer 1999 to no longer support
Slobodan Milošević, but back those supposed to succeed him after the loss
of Kosovo and the signing of the Kumanovo Agreement that put an end to NATO intervention in Serbia.[38]
In an attempt to explain
Serbs’ poor awareness about “the faith of their own,” Patriarch Pavle says that
throughout the history the SOC has been less occupied by faith, and more by
state and politics. Having no problems with this fact, the Patriarch states
that the Church, during its whole history, including the 20th
century, was forced to “leave behind its primary duties” in order to
participate actively in the struggle for the unification of “Serbdom,” which
was why “a priest had to be a teacher and a judge, and to pull a gun to defend
himself and his family”. Legitimizing the neglect of spiritual matters by the
urge to create a state, which needed fighting for, Patriarch Pavle implicitly
legitimized the same behavior of the Church during the latest wars in the
territory of the former Yugoslavia, namely the support the Church was giving to
Milošević’s warring policy. Finally, such a perception of the role of the
SOC implies that the Church will continue to consider “leaving behind its
primary duties” legitimate and to engage in politics, and, if necessary, in a
war.[39]
How powerful is the position
the SOC holds after October 5 was demonstrated by the way religious instruction
was introduced in public school curricula. The Serbian government, except for
the Minister of Religions, was against the latter, in principle. Moreover, the
Deputy Minister of Education threatened to resign, while the Minister himself,
on several occasions, has expressed his negative stance on the idea. However,
religious instruction was introduced by a governmental decree. This is only the
most important in a series of concessions the Government made under the
pressure constantly exerted by the Serbian Orthodox Church, that is, by
political circles the interests of which intertwined with those of the Church.
This primarily refers to closest associates of the president of the former FRY,
Vojislav Koštunica.
Thus, for example, the Minister of Religions, Vojislav Milovanović, by the
end of last year announced incorporation of the Faculty of Theology in the
Belgrade University, the restitution of property to “traditional churches and
religious communities.” He also said that, at that point, over fifty major
religious facilities were under construction throughout Serbia, and that the
government had procured more than a hundred million dinars to that end.[40] As
for the dispute on the youth summer camps whereby the SOC accused the
government of “gerrymandering shamelessness and satanic immorality,” an end was
put to it after a meeting between the Minister of Education Gašo Knežević
and the Patriarch at the initiative of Bishop Atanasije Rakita, president of
the SOC Committee on Religious Instruction. The meeting resulted by an
agreement that the Church will join in the future operation of the camps. On
that occasion the Minister of Education offered the program of educational
reform in Serbia to the perusal of the Patriarch.[41]
The SOC has never recognized the
borders of Serbia within Yugoslavia after the World War II. At the beginning of
1992, at the time when the war for reshaping these borders was already
underway, the Congregation of the SOC issued a declaration saying it acknowledged
not the borders set up by the AVNOJ, while Bishop Atanasije Jevtić
qualified their revision as a question vital for
Serbian people, which in itself justified the Church’s interference into
politics. In the summer of 1995, the Patriarch signed that Milošević was entitled to negotiate the
borders in the name of Bosnian Serbs in Dayton. However, after the Dayton
Accords were signed, the Congregation of the SOC, dissatisfied with the
solution reached, declared the Patriarch’s signature invalid.
The territory of
Serbia as decided by the AVNOJ is twice smaller than “the historical Serbian
region,” writes Pravoslavlje in 2002,
naming Josip Broz as the prime culprit. Then who’s a quisling, asks Pravoslavlje, and concludes, “In any
case, neither Milan Nedić
nor Draža Mihailović are to be found in the ranks
of the World War II quislings”.[42]
A national-political
engagement was the most prominent activity the SOC pursued in 2002. The main
problems were the so-called schisms – a term the SOC uses to qualify the
Montenegrin and Macedonian Orthodox Church (MOC). Actually, the core of the
problem in the case of Montenegro is the SOC’s attitude to Montenegrin
authorities, which are being denied since the SOC considers Montenegro a
Serbian ethnical territory without any hesitation. Consequently, it negates the
very existence of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church (MOC). In the case of
Macedonia, however, the SOC reopened a years-long and partially solved question
of the autocephaly of the MOC, with the intent to deny its autocephalous
status, but not the very existence of the Macedonian Church. In both cases the
SOC acts with unquestionably political or, to put it more precisely,
territorial and political pretensions – although openly and with greater
ambitions when it comes to the former, and more modestly and in a concealed way
in the case of the latter. Finally, in both cases, the Church is fully
supported by the Russian Orthodox Church, which calls upon “respect for
canonical norms.” This, and every other support to the Serbian Orthodox Church,[43] was
expressed by the Russian Patriarch while bestowing the highest award of the
Russian Orthodox Church on the Serbian Patriarch, “for his personal
contribution to the strengthening of Christianity and the unity of Eastern
Orthodox nations.” While expressing his thanks, the Serbian Patriarch said he
was primarily grateful to the Russian leadership, then to the Russian Army, and
finally to the Russian Orthodox Church for the help they gave to the SOC and
the Serbian people with regards to Kosovo and Metohija.[44]
Serbia and Montenegro can
part – says Amfilohije Radović – only against peoples’ will, by violence,
theft, blackmail and threat. The SOC will, therefore, ignore Montenegro’s
possible decision on independence. As to the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, it is
the “child of Titoists,” who are “today continuing the
violence against the SOC.”[45] This
is the sum and substance of the SOC’s attitude regarding Montenegro’s state
status.
The main characteristic of the political
engagement of Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović is radical nationalism and
extreme hate speech, which often slips into elementary impoliteness, even
vulgarity.
Another illustrious instance
of overt political engagement of Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović united
with hate speech is his appearance at the New Year celebration in Podgorica, in
the night between January 13 and 14. 2002. On that occasion, in support of the
continued existence of the common state, he exclaimed, “Let every Montenegrin
nail with a hammer the damned emperor Dukljanin to the Vezir bridge.”[46] At
that point the issue of Montenegro’s referendum on the state status was in full
swing. Later “explanations” in which Amfilohije claimed that he had in mind
Emperor Dukljanin as the legendary symbol of paganism were not only
unconvincing, but also hypocritical, in view of the fact that Duklja (the
medieval Montenegrin state) has become the symbol of Montenegrin state
independence during the recent processes aimed at the realization of this goal.
The Serbian Orthodox Church
pursues its strategy of ignoring Montenegrin authorities through attempts to
impede the exertion of state authority on the land owned by the Church and thus
build a state within a state. Refusing to act upon a decision of the Republic’s
Bureau for the Protection of Cultural Monuments to cease the works on four
monastery complexes on the Lake of Skadar, Amfilohije Radović warns the
director of the Bureau that from now his office will not be allowed, without a
written consent of the Diocese, to perform any works on the lands “owned’ by
the Church, and that the SOC “does not accept to be a hanger to any necrophilic
institution…with pagan spirit and petty-profit orientation.” (Qualifications
pertain to Montenegrin authorities.) Reminding the director of the Bureau that
the time when cultural monuments were protected “by commissaries” was over, he
refers to the cultural project of the Cetinje biennial by saying, “The recent
biennial turns the royal Cetinje into an ‘artistic’ doghouse, the entrance to the
royal palace into an artistic 'ox-promenade' and other postmodern vulgarities,
all of which humiliates the ancient city.”[47]
In its strategy of creating
“a state within a state” the SOC is openly supported by the Army. On the eve of
the cease of existence of the FRY, having in mind the fact that the
Constitutional Charter of the new state envisages that all real estate of the
Army that is not in a direct function of defense becomes the property of the
two republics, the SOC and the Army hastily sign contracts by which the Army
property was transferred to the SOC – huge complexes of land, army barracks,
etc. Thus, for example, Metropolitan Amfilohije and the outgoing Minister of
Defense Velimir Radojević signed a contract on December 12, 2002, by which
the Army transferred to the Church the property of 10.000 square meters of
land, with accompanying buildings, on the Flower Island, a first-rate tourist
location.[48]
By this openly political arrangement, this small public estate, as it already
is, is to be divided between Montenegro state and the Serbian Orthodox Church,
with the latter establishing its own authority on “its” part.
The opening of the
“Macedonian question” in the spring of 2002 intensified to the extreme the
bitter relations between the two churches. The conflict arouse upon the
initiative of the SOC that the two churches come to an agreement on the
canonical status of the MOC. The MOC separated from the SOC and proclaimed
autocephaly back in 1967, but without canonical acknowledgment, which needed
the consent of the SOC. The solution proposed in the spring of 2002 by the SOC
(Metropolitan Amfilohije, Bishop Irinej of Niš and Bishop Pahomije of
Vranje) was that the MOC should renounce autocephaly, while the SOC would grant
it autonomy in return [49]. The MOC Synod, however, did not accept
the offer by the SOC, and after that Patriarch Pavle, in the name of the SOC
Synod, issued a public appeal for overcoming the “schism” and reestablishing
the canonical unity of the Serbian Orthodox Church. By this appeal, he
implicitly acknowledged that the SOC was ready to accept individual eparchies
also.[50]
Metropolitan of the Veleško-Povardarska Eparchy Jovan accepted the offer, which
resulted in division within the MOC, that is, in the unification of one of its
parts with the Serbian Orthodox Church. The ensuing dispute between the Serbian
and Macedonian Orthodox Churches showed the same political matrix and political
technology that was in the core of the conflicts in the territory of the former
Yugoslavia. The head of the MOC accused the Patriarch of “unhidden appetites”
for “usurpation” of the MOC and wondered when the SOC would put an end to its
aspirations to “rule over what is not Serbian.” “You have to understand that
this is ours and belongs to us only.” “It is more than clear that you intend to
destroy the unity of the Macedonian Orthodox Church,” said the head of the MOC,
adding that by these acts the Serbian Patriarch lost the respect of the
Macedonian people.[51]
During
2002. the question of the autonomy of Vojvodina also became very
acute. The position of the Serbian Orthodox Church on the issue was defined by
Bishop Irinej of Bačka,
one of major nationalistic hard-liners within the SOC, also known as the “red
bishop” due to his close relations with the Milošević regime. Irinej is a
member of the extreme nationalistic movement “Svetozar Miletić,” whose
members are, among others, Kosta Čavoški, Vasilije Krestić and Smilja
Avramov. The same as Amfilohije, Bishop Irinej of Bačka openly joined the political
dispute. Though incomparably more moderate, his speech was not freed from
explicit nationalistic intolerance.
In January 2002, Bishop
Irinej of Bačka
declared that the SOC was going to organize the annual commemoration for the
victims of fascism in Novi Sad (the Novi Sad raid) separately from provincial
authorities should Vojvodina parliamentary speaker, Nenad Čanak – an
outspoken advocate of the autonomy for Vojvodina - take part in it. Čanak
reacted by reminding Irinej of the tolerance the latter showed for former top
people such as “Arkan, Perošević, Jugoslav Kostić and others” and
warned him that after October 5 “the importance and participation of the SOC in
public affairs has grown considerably, and the uninstitutional influence of the
SOC dignitaries even more.” In its political rise the SOC came to the point
when it starts to “rank state officials by their ‘suitability’,” said
Čanak. The result of this conflict were two
ceremonies held separately.[52]
By the end of the year
Irinej engaged in yet another political battle, with his statement that the
Assembly of Vojvodina “is not Serbian because Serbs are a minority in it.”
Sharp political reactions of the Vojvodina’s DOS (the ruling alliance) ensued,
calling this act a “distasteful accounting of the national composition of the
Province Assembly” by the SOC.[53] A
few days later, Irinej participated in the assembly of the “Svetozar Miletić” Movement in Novi Sad, where a demand
for early provincial elections was made under the pretext that “the Assembly of
Vojvodina does not have democratic legitimacy and mocks the citizens, and that
even a minimal consensus between the Assembly and the majority of Serbian
people in Vojvodina does not exist. The Assembly is acting openly against the
Serbian state” or, as Irinej put it, against “Serbian unity and congregational
spirit.” [54]
Active national-political, or, to put
it more precisely, nationalistic engagement of the Serbian Orthodox Church was
the foundation on which the unity of interests and conspicuously successful
cooperation between the Church and the Army were developed after October 5.
Apart from the aforementioned examples of direct cooperation (as in the case of
Montenegro), the latter is also evident on the level of symbolism. Namely, a
newly established rule provides that the highest representatives of the Army
take part in all important ceremonies organized by the Church – from unveiling
of monuments, through opening of temples, to enthronements of church
dignitaries.
Some of these ceremonies are
interesting as they indicate to this new union of interests. Thus, for example,
Chief the General Staff General Pavković and his
escort landed from a military helicopter to attend the ceremony of unveiling of
the monument to Nikolaj Velimirović in the Soko monastery on March 24,
2002, the anniversary of the beginning of the NATO intervention in Serbia.[55]
Also, general Pavković laid the first stone of facilities to be erected on
the grounds of the Mileševa monastery, and according to the monastery journal Mileševac, two hundred soldiers were
engaged in the works. A fish pond, stables, a poultry farm and a monument to
“the victims of communist terror” were built on the terrain belonging to the
monastery, the prior of which and the main entrepreneur of the works, father
Filaret, is known for his unrestrained and bellicose mood at the beginning of
the 1990s. The works on the monastery lands were undertaken without a
permission of local authorities, which resulted in criminal charges against
father Filaret “for drastic endangering of the Mileševa monastery area as an
authentic spiritual and architectural whole in harmony with the natural
environment.”[56]
Conclusion:
Immediately after the change
of the regime in Serbia on October 5, 2000 the Serbian Orthodox Church managed
to impose the question of its institutional redefinition, which implied
abandonment of the constitutional principle of the separation of church and
state, as a priority, issue of strategic importance for the society and the
state; and all that was done at the point when the citizens and the society as
a whole found themselves at the brink of moral and material disaster, an
outcome of the policy that has been abundantly supported by the Serbian
Orthodox Church.
The past year is strongly
marked by a vivid activity of the SOC, aimed at achieving the above goal. To
that end, the Church fully cooperated with both federal and republic ministries
of religions, enjoyed the support of the Yugoslav
(Serbia and Montenegro) Army and a more or less benevolent attitude on the part
of the majority of Serbian media.[57] The
Church sought its main pillar among political and social structures, as well as
among most fierce individual opponents of Serbia’s facing its recent past, i.e.
the responsibility for wars and war crimes. These forces had based their
legitimacy and social authority on ethno-nationalism and adherence to the
project of pan-Serbian unification even before October 5, 2000. After the
military defeat, the Church has been growingly unveiling itself as the main
pillar for all those attempting to keep this project alive. By ignoring the
issue of its own responsibility for wars and war crimes ever since October 5,
the Serbian Orthodox Church, which had revitalized its political influence once
Milošević came to power, today strives to secure for itself an
institutional form that would boost its influence, and is obviously on a good
road to success.
[1] Politika,
December 2, 2000.
[2] Politika, March 4, 2002.
[3] See statement issued by the
Information bureau of the Serbian Orthodox Church on November 24, 2000.
[4] Interview
of Patriarch Pavle given to Danas, January
5-7, 2002.
[5] Blic
news, February 2002.
[6] Nacional, September 23, 2002.
[7] Danas, January 18, 2002.
[8] Pravoslavlje, 847, July 1, 2002.
[9] Pravoslavlje,
813, February 1, 2001.
[10] See article on cults by Zoran
Luković, captain in: Pravoslavlje, 847,
July 1, 2002.
[11] Politika,
January 4, 2002.
[12] The hard
nationalistic strand gained domination in the SOC at the eve of Yugoslav wars.
Pavle, the bishop of Raška and Prizren was
elected patriarch in December 1990, although German was still alive, which was
a precedent within the SOC. During the same Congregation Amfilohije
Radović was elected metropolitan of Montenegro and the Coast and Irinej
Bulović bishop of Bačka. In May 1991, Artemije was elected bishop of
Raška and Prizren, and Atanasije Jeftić
bishop of Banat. In his memoirs, Days-Remembrances,
academician Dejan Medaković witnesses a great and in his opinion decisive
influence of certain academicians on personal questions in the top hierarchy of
the SOC during the last thirty years. According to his memoirs the
election of Patriarch German was “directly influenced by Dobrica
Ćosić”, while Medaković himself, as far back as 1976 tells the
Patriarch that the aged Montenegrin metropolitan Danilo should be replaced,
after he dies, by Amfilohije Radović, and that preparations for this
change should start immediately. And all that in the context of expectations
that after the death of Danilo “pressure” will come to grant independence to
the Church in Montenegro. (See feuilleton
Days-Remembrances, Politika, March
23, 2003).
[13] Vreme,
March 28, 2002.
[14] See “Serbian conservative thought”
(edited by Mirko Djordjević), Essays
(Ogledi), vol. 4, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Beograd 2003.
[15] News Radio B 92, March 21, 2003.
[16] Pravoslavlje also contributed to the encouragement of intolerance towards the Church
of England, with articles on the support of this Church given to the NATO
intervention in FRY in 1999. See e.g. the article “What the Head of the Church
of England preaches on Easter”, Pravoslavlje,
773, June 1, 99.
[17] Statement of the
Office of religious instruction within the Patriarchate, Politika, December 2, 2000.
[18] Statement of the
Press service of SOC of November 24, 2000.
[19] Pravoslavlje, 813, February 1, 2001.
[20] Danas,
January 12-13, 2002.
[21] Politika,
January 5-7, 2002.
[22] Danas,
December 17, 2002.
[23] Danas,
December 17, 2002.
[24] Danas,
January 12-13, 2002.
[25] M. Djordjević, op.cit.
[26] Danas, September 2, 2002.
[27] Nacional,
September 3, 2002.
[28] From M.
Djordjević, op.cit.
[29] Ratibor – Rajko M. Djurdjević, Pravoslavlje, 775, July 1, 1999.
[30] Pravloslavlje,
847, July 1, 2002.
[31] Pravoslavlje, 813, February 1, 2001.
[32] Thus the Patriarch
teaches the believers that women should only exceptionally be allowed to wear
trousers, and never for reasons of “fashion or an erroneous understanding of
the equality of sexes”; further on, that they are not allowed to expose their
hair, unless it is cut short. As to the prohibition to enter the church during
their period, which was very strict before, the Patriarch says: As “modern
hygienic devices are capable of effectively preventing... I believe that there
are no obstacles for women to enter the church during their period, and with
necessary caution and hygienic measures, kiss the icons, take the wafer and
holy water, as well as participate in chants”. However, “in that condition she
could not take the Communion or be baptized. Although, in
case of deadly illness she could take the Communion and be baptized.” Vreme, December 19, 2002.
[33] Danas, January 5-7, 2002.
[34] M. Djordjević, op.cit.
[35] Pravoslavlje,
776, July 15, 1999.
[36] Vreme,
December 19, 2002. (From the book by Patriarch Pavle,
“Some questions of our faith”, Beograd 1998).
[37] Politika,
March 4, 2002.
[38] Pravoslavlje, 776, July 15, 1999.
[39] Danas, January 5-7, 2001.
[40] Nacional,
September 23, 2002.
[41] Svedok, September 10, 2002.
[42] Pravoslavlje, 843, May 1, 2002.
[43] The understanding between the two
Churches was expressed in 2002 in the same attitude they shared towards the
Vatican. In the whole Orthodox world these two Churches have the hardest stand
on this issue.
[44] Novosti, January 22, 2002. On the same day the award for the
contribution to the unity of Orthodox people went to Russian president Vladimir
Putin, whom the Patriarch Alexei the Second called “the greatest orthodox
statesman in the modern world”.
[45] Novosti,
January 10, 2002.
[46] Blic,
January 20, 2002.
[47] Nacional, August 12, 2002; Borba,
August 16, 2002; Novosti, August 13,
2002.
[48] Blic, January 5, 2002.
[49] Danas, May 17, 2002.
[50] Novosti,
June 22, 2002.
[51] Nacional,
July 27, 2002.
[52] Danas,
January 22, 2002.
[53] Novosti,
December 20, 2002.
[54] Danas,
December 23, 2002.
[55] Vreme, March 28, 2002.
[56] Danas, March 8, and April, 13-14, 2002.
[57] It is interesting,
for example, that journalists who write about the Church in some daily
newspapers contribute at the same time the SOC journal Pravoslavlje. (See e.g. the interview of the Danas daily journalist Jelena Tasić with
Amfilohije Radović, Pravoslavlje,
844, May 15, 2002 and the article by the same journalist The Speech of Amfilohije Radović in Danas, March 22-23, 2003).