CRKVA, NACIJA, DRŽAVA - SRPSKA PRAVOSLAVNA CRKVA I TRANZICIJA U SRBIJI
CHURCH, NATION, STATE - SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND TRANSITION IN SERBIA

Author(s): Olga Popović-Obradović
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Political Theory, Politics and religion, Nationalism Studies, Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: Serbian Orthodox Church; state-church; borders; war; national identity; anti-Westernism
Summary/Abstract: After four decades of the communist period, the Serbian Orthodox Church entered the public life of Serbia with the coming to power of Milosevic in order to help operationalize the Greater Serbian state project. However, the institutionalization of its new role did not occur, considering the unclear relationship that the Milosevic regime had towards the communist ideological heritage, which, among other things, implied the secular character of the state. With the departure of Milošević and the arrival of the new government, which openly and manifestly bases its legitimacy on anti-communism, these ideological obstacles disappeared and accelerated work began on the institutional abandonment of the secular principle at all levels of life in society and the state, especially those that play a key role in shaping national identity and the overall cultural model of young people. Bearing in mind its close connection with government institutions, both civil and military, as well as its media promotion - it could be said that the conditions for the legalization of this role of the Serbian Orthodox Church have never been more favorable. This fact, which from the point of view of the general standards of the modern age is already problematic in itself, takes on special importance if it is taken into account, firstly, that the Church performs its role in the conditions of a destroyed society, an identity crisis and a general value vacuum left behind by the recently ended wars, secondly, that for those wars as well as the devastation they caused, the Church itself bears a considerable part of the responsibility that it has not yet faced and, thirdly, that the values ​​that the Church promotes are no longer, so to speak, exception goes against the very foundations of modern society.

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