THE CHURCH, THE NATION, THE STATE - THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND TRANSITION IN SERBIA
THE CHURCH, THE NATION, THE STATE - THE SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH AND TRANSITION IN SERBIA

Author(s): Olga Popović-Obradović
Subject(s): Politics, Politics and religion, Inter-Ethnic Relations, Sociology of Religion, Wars in Jugoslavia
Published by: CEDET Centar za demokratsku tranziciju
Keywords: Serbian Orthodox Church; State-Church; borders; war; national identity; anti-Western attitude
Summary/Abstract: After four decades of Communist rule, and with the coming of Milošević into power, the Serbian Orthodox Church entered the public scene in Serbia to help make the Greater Serbia state project operational. Nevertheless, its new role has not been institutionalized due to the unclear attitude that the Milošević regime had regarding the communist ideological heritage, which entailed - among other things - a secular state. With the downfall of Milošević and the arrival of the new authorities which openly and manifestly based their legitimacy on anti-com­munism, all such ideological obstacles have been removed and intense activities began for an institutional abandonment of the secular principle on all levels of life in the society and the state, especially those playing a key role in the shaping of the national identity and the overall cultural model for the youth. Bearing in mind its close relations with government institutions, both civil and military, as well as its media promotion it could be said that the conditions for the legalization of such a role of the Serbian Orthodox Church were never more favorable. This fact, which is problematic by itself from the perspective of general modern standards, gains particular importance considering that, firstly, the Church is performing this role in a situation marked by disintegrated society, identity crisis and general lack of values that the recent wars have left behind; secondly, that the Church itself bears much of the responsibility for those wars and the destruction they have caused and that it has not yet faced it; and thirdly, that nearly without exception, all the values promoted by the Church are in conflict with the very foundations of modern society.

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