SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN THE CONTEXT OF STATE'S HISTORY
SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH IN THE CONTEXT OF STATE'S HISTORY

Summary/Abstract: During its history of the formation and survival in the context of a direct territorial and political contact with challenges of Roman Catholicism and Islam, the Serbian Orthodox Church has developed a strategy of conservative reaction that does not accept changes or the challenges of modernity. As the counterweight to the lack of strong borders of the Serbian people, the Serbian Orthodox Church has developed strong boarders that protect the Orthodox identity. Paradoxically, although it was stronger than the state in which it developed the religious identity of the citizens, the Church has always remained in the shadow of the state, with the need to be protected and accepted. Of indicators of religiosity, the strongest part of the identity is the icon as a symbolically open system for the presence of the holy. Social aspects of Orthodox religiosity have been maintained for centuries by Slavas, family rituals that carry the message of ancestry and belonging.

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