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Montenegro lived on Thursday 26 December a crazy day recalling the bad memories of the 1990s, when the small country of the Balkans often seemed on the verge of falling into civil war.
This time, it was the new law on the status of religious communities, hotly contested by the Serbian Orthodox Church, that set fire to the powder. The shock wave soon spread to the whole region. On Friday, deputies came to blows in the Parliament of Serbia, where the far-right movement Dveri proposes nothing less than the breakdown of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, prayer vigils and rallies of support for the Serbs of Montenegro took place this weekend in front of the Orthodox churches of several cities, notably in Banja Luka, Pale or Trebinje. As of Friday, even the small Serb minority in North Macedonia had expressed their anger.
Serbian Orthodox Church denounces "spoliation law"
Adopted on the night of Thursday to Friday by the Montenegrin Parliament and initialed on Saturday by the President of the Republic Milo Djukanovic , the disputed law provides that all religious buildings constructed before 1918 will pass under state control, unless the religious communities concerned may produce valid property titles prior to this date, that of the forced attachment of Montenegro to the new kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, predecessor of Yugoslavia.
The Serbian Orthodox Church, which has huge estates, churches and many monasteries, denounces a " law of spoliation ". Montenegro is indeed a country with a complex religious structure: alongside Catholics, especially present in certain sectors of the Adriatic coast, and Muslims, the majority of the population is of Orthodox tradition, but Orthodoxy is itself divided.
Next to the Serbian Orthodox Church, arch-dominant and only recognized by the world Orthodox community, an autocephalous Montenegrin Orthodox Church (ie independent) was created in 1994. It claims however to have " restored " l autonomy enjoyed by the Church before 1918: supporters of the Montenegrin Church affirm that the Serbian Church, taking advantage of the country's attachment to the new kingdom, would then have " usurped " the possessions of the first ...
Of course, jurists and theologians have been scrapping the subject for a quarter of a century, and the faithful of the two Churches sometimes come to blows to ensure control of a few chapels lost in the mountains. Since the controversial law was passed, vigilance committees have been formed in the traditionally pro-Serb regions of Montenegro in order to "defend" places of worship potentially threatened. This is because the question touches on the very identity of the Montenegrins, whose religious independence would be a central element: over the centuries, did they have their own Church, or were they attached to the Serbian Church?
Denominational belonging, a marker of national identity
Milo Djukanovic and the head of the Serbian Church in Montenegro have been practicing for almost 30 years. Milo Djukanovic became Prime Minister in 1989, while Amfilohije Radovic was elected Serbian metropolitan of Montenegro and the Coast in 1991… For a long time, the two men remained close. Metropolitan Amfilohije did not oppose Montenegro's independence in 2006, while Milo Djukanovic's regime maintained a cautious neutrality on the religious question, avoiding taking sides with the Montenegrin Church or of the Serbian Church.
It is probably the recognition of the independence of the Ukrainian Church , a year ago, that came to change the situation, reinforcing the legitimacy of a Montenegrin Church. In the Balkans, denominational belonging is still a marker of national identity, and the religious question has not finished poisoning the political life of Montenegro and its neighbors. Serbian nationalists have no difficulty in mobilizing widely around the theme of "defense of the Church". On Sunday, crowds gathered in Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, denounced “ Milo Djukanovic the Turk ”, accusing him of being ready to “ sell ” the most holy Serbian treasures…
Some observers note, however, that no irreparable gesture has been committed. Before the adoption of the law, Metropolitan Amfilohije had publicly threatened with excommunication and with a curse all those who would vote for it, even raising the possibility of launching anathema on Montenegro, a few days before Christmas, than the Orthodox - Montenegrins as Serbs - celebrate January 7. The law has been passed, the Serbian Orthodox Church has successfully demonstrated unprecedented scale, and little is likely to change on the ground.