Етноконфесионална прожимања на граници: Румуни у општини Вршац
Ethno-Confessional Permeations At The Border: Romanians In The Municipality Of Vršac

Summary/Abstract: As one of the most important economic, administrative, cultural, educational, and religious centers of Banat, Vršac is the environment in which the influences of different cultures, religions, and languages are intertwined. Vršac is the seat of the homonymous border municipality, which consists of 24 inhabited areas, with a total of 54 369 inhabitants. In terms of ethnic structure, based on the 2002 census, the most numerous were Serbs (39,418 or 72.5%), followed by Romanians (5,913 or 10.87%), Hungarians (2,819 or 4.81%), Romany (1,186 or 2.18%), Macedonians and Croats (1%), and others (7%). In addition to the above, the introductory part of this article gives details of the World War II census, from which demographic trends and changes in the ethnic structure of Vršac can be monitored. What contributes to the rich diversity is the presence of various confessional communities, namely: Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Uniate (Greek-Catholic), Methodist, Nazarene, Adventist, Pentecostal, and Baptist. After reviewing the current state ofthe religion of the Serbian majority community and the ethnic minorities, special attention is given to the most numerous ethnic group - Romanians. Although they are mostly Orthodox, the Romanian community is a very good example of the religious diversity within a single, seemingly mono-confessional, ethnic group. Thus, in addition to the Orthodox Romanians, in the municipality of Vršac there are Romanian Greek-Catholics, Nazarenes, Baptists, Adventists, and Pentecostals. The results of the qualitative research presented in this paper show that neo-Protestant communities are present in all the places with Romanian population. In the town of Vršac, neo-Protestant communities are ethnically mixed and most of them consist of Serbs and Romanians. Although certain communities have a historical continuity from the late 19th century (Nazarenes and Adventists), most of the communities were established in the last few decades (Baptists and Pentecostals). The emergence of these communities has also influenced the creation of new interfaith relations between traditional and non-traditional communities. Although there is no official dialogue between the representatives of religious communities (priests and pastors) in the local community, there are contacts between believers, especially in the rural areas. The recorded positive examples of interfaith cooperation 1078 are related to the cooperation between the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Romanians, on the one hand, and the cooperation of the neo-Protestant communities between themselves, on the other hand. Negative marking of neo-Protestants in this environment is often expressed by use of the term sectarians, which symbolically represents the attitude of the society towards small religious communities.

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