Religion and Politics in Serbia -- The

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SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL. 12/20/16
TAGS: PREL PGOV SOCI KIRF SR
SUBJECT: Religion and Politics in Serbia -- The
Political Role of the Serbian Orthodox Church

Classified by: POLCOUNS Gustavo Delgado, reasons
1.4 (b,d)


1. (C) Summary: The Serbian Orthodox Church
(SOC) has played an important political role
since the end of the Milosevic era, increasingly
collaborating with conservative nationalists to
promote a mutually beneficial agenda that
encourages conservative values at home and
school, discourages strong action on ICTY
compliance, and supports a hardline position on
Kosovo. The church is likely to remain hardline
in the near future as the status of Kosovo is
determined, but moderate voices in the church
could come to the fore if reformists lead the
next coalition government after parliamentary
elections January 21. End Summary.

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Brief History
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2. (SBU) The SOC grew out of the tradition of
eastern Christianity, following Constantinople
rather than Rome after the Great Schism. Under
Ottoman rule, the church became closely
associated with Serbian resistance, which linked
it to Serbian national identity and the
resulting Serbian monarchy. In Tito's
Yugoslavia, the atheistic state officially
discouraged all forms of reigion, severely
limiting the SOC's role in sociey. With the
collapse of communism and the resurence ofnationalist movements in the 1980s and 90, the
church saw a mild religious revival and an
increase in its power.


3. (SBU) Th SOC played a controversial role in
the Yugoslav wars, sometimes giving mixed
messages. On the one hand, the church called
for peace and reconciliation, but also issued a
number of official statements voicing its
support for Serbia keeping the conquered
territories, particularly in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, and some individual bishops even
went as far as to conduct services blessing
soldiers just before important battles (as
infamously portrayed in the "Scorpions" video
from Srebrenica). In the aftermath of the
October 5th movement which ousted President
Milosevic, the church has moved to establish
greater ties to the Serbian government, finding
a willing ally in Prime Minister Kostunica, and
has begun a campaign of desecularization.

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Factions within the Church
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4. (SBU) Church member and critic Mirko
Djordjevic described to Emboffs the divisions
within the SOC as generally continuing along the
same lines of pro-war versus anti-war that arose
in the 1990's, with current Patriarch Pavle
maintaining a balance between the two. However,
he added, there are no clearly defined groups of
hardliners and moderates, but rather a spectrum
of views that vary based on the issue.
Observers have noted that the more hardline
bishops seem to be gaining in power at the
expense of the moderates, as evident in the
promotion away from the center of power of
prominent moderate Irinej Dobrijevic (recently
named Bishop of Australia and New Zealand),and
the ascent of outspokenly conservative Bosnian
clergymen at the last Bishops Conference. Some
observers have also claimed that the influx of
refugees into Serbia has helped contribute to
the rise of the hardline faction, as these
groups tend to be more conservative.

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SOC Relations with Political Leadership
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5. (SBU) While various parties maintain
contacts with the factions within the SOC, the
party with the strongest church ties is the DSS.
Aside from PM Kostunica's personal family ties
to church leaders (his wife is neice to
Metropolitan Amfilohije),observers remark that
he and his party are actively working to ensure

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SOC support on a number of issues, most
prominently the final status of Kosovo. A
church insider commented that the DSS generally
pushes for the advancement of the hardliners
within the church, and is opposed to moderates
gaining power. The SOC has also had
traditionally strong ties to DSS members who
have been Education Ministers, especially the
previous minister, Ljiljana Colic, who
frequently referenced the church in her
decisions and called Saint Sava "the ideal of
the Serbian education system." Dr. Milan
Vukomanovic, a religion and sociology professor
at Belgrade University, said the SOC is so
linked to the DSS that its fortunes will ascend
or descend based on DSS performance at the
polls. The SOC played a central role in helping
Kostunica get his constitution passed, with
Patriarch Pavle garnering extensive media
coverage as he was carried from his sickbed to
cast a "yes" vote in the constitutional
referendum.


6. (SBU) Other parties, while not as
influential as the DSS, also have church ties.
Observers say the DS has recently moved to
improve relations with moderate church leaders,
with some claiming Tadic is hoping to keep a
hardline conservative from becoming the next
Patriarch. Djordjevic and other observers claim
that some church officials also have strong ties
to the Radicals. Additionally, some analysts
hypothesize that if the monarchist SPO develops
closer ties to the royal family (to include
perhaps putting family members on the party
list),they could gain more support from the
SOC, since the church is one of the most
outspoken proponents of restoring the monarchy.
However, with SPO polling under 5 percent in
recent election surveys, and with Crown Prince
Aleksander more of a mind to start his own
monarchy party (on those occasions when he
considers a political life),this scenario is
unlikely.

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Desecularization
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7. (SBU) Critics of the SOC claim that the
church is pushing more and more for official
integration into the Serbian state. In the
current constitution, the SOC is not recognized
as the official state religion, but it is
granted "special status" as first among a list
of 7 "traditional faiths" in Serbia. The SOC
has publicly requested that it be given official
status as the state religion, but so far this
has been rejected by the government. Observers
note that it already has de facto official
status, particularly when considering the very
close ties to the Ministry of Religious Affairs,
which the Helsinki Committee on Human Rights
says "behaves almost like an external government
'service' of the SOC."


8. (SBU) The Kostunica government has shown
itself to be willing to compromise with the
church on this issue, as evident in the Draft
Law on the Freedom of Religion, Churches,
Religious Communities and Religious Associations
of July 2004, which granted the clergy of the
SOC public immunity and solidified its primus
inter pares status relative to other religions.
The Religion Law was originally vetoed by
President Tadic as clearly inadequate to
European standards for protecting human and
religious rights, but was passed over his
objections by the parliament as a sidebar issue
in an emergency session early this year.


9. (SBU) Although the new constitution
explicitly states that Serbia is a secular
state, the attitudes espoused by the current
government tend towards ever more cooperation
and accommodation with the SOC. Indeed, many
political analysts and constitutional scholars
see a heavy SOC hand in the drafting of the
constitution, especially in the areas of
social/family, religion, and education law. In
addition, since the ouster of Milosevic, the SOC
has been permitted (as have other religions) to

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provide religious instruction in public schools,
revealing the lack of commitment to secular
education. Djordjevic notes that while this
religious instruction has shown little results
in promoting religion among young people, it has
been an effective tool for spreading the
church's political message, which is most
frequently represented by priests who teach
students that the recent Yugoslav wars were
justified and that Serbia should defend its
territorial claims.

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SOC Kosovo Policy
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10. (C) The church's official stance is that
Kosovo must remain an integral part of Serbia,
with independence or autonomy out of the
question. On this issue, the church has made
some of its most outspoken statements. Leaders
of the SOC even went as far as to call for Serbs
in Kosovo to boycott elections and not
participate in the Pristina government.
However, there are factions in the church
pushing for a more practical response to the
situation. The leading figure of the moderates
on this issue has been Bishop Teodosije, who
pointed out that the SOC has survived in many
states under many circumstances, from the
Ottomans to the communists, and that it would
continue to survive in Kosovo no matter what the
outcome. In fact, observers say that the most
likely response to an independent Kosovo would
be for the SOC to gain the same kind of status
it has currently in Croatia. Many now believe
the SOC would accept an outcome that Kostunica
and the Radicals would oppose, so long as it
adequately protected SOC rights and properties
in Kosovo. So far, however, the government?s
cooperation with SOC hardliners has kept the
church from engaging constructively with
Ahtisaari on the issue, so neither the clergy
not the congregation has a clear idea of what
protections are being considered.

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SOC ICTY Policy
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11. (C) Internally, we are told, there are
bishops on both sides of the debate over whether
to turn accused war criminal Ratko Mladic over
to the Hague Tribunal. Damjan Krnjevic-Miskovic,
an advisor in President Tadic's office for
religious affairs told us that privately, most
of the leading figures in the SOC are in favor
of Mladic's extradition to The Hague- either on
religious/moral grounds or for realpolitik
reasons of moving Serbia forward. Nevertheless,
the SOC publicly continues to hold the line that
the Tribunal is biased against Serbs, and that
"only the Serbian crimes are singled out."
There has never been an official apology issued
for the church's role in some of the crimes of
the recent Balkan wars, despite its documented
involvement.

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SOC on Euro-Atlantic Integration
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12. (SBU) According to church-watchers, the SOC
is fundamentally opposed to what it sees as an
overly-secular Western culture, and has
frequently commented that integration would
threaten the very identity of Serbia.
Djordjevic points out that the SOC is wary of
Serbian accession to the EU due to the fact that
orthodox communities make up only a tiny
minority of those religious organizations
represented in the EU, and the church sees the
Vatican as having much more influence. The SOC
considers NATO membership to be an equal threat,
and takes a pointedly anti-American stance on
this issue, even going as far as to initiate the
canonization process for a 3-year-old victim of
the 1999 NATO bombings as a public reminder.

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Relationship with Other Religious Communities
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13. (SBU) According to Dr. Vukomanovic, the
SOC at present is an inward-looking group of old
men who, with the help of the current
government, cling to the past and reject ideas
of ecumenicalism being suggested by younger and
more western-exposed clergy. Instead of working
with the civil societies to increase
understanding between the various ethnicities
and confessional communities and build a
positive new society, the SOC takes a retrograde
stance, focused on building its political power
base and righting historical wrongs. It has
rejected the visit of the Pope to Serbia based
upon old grudges from the two World Wars (in
particular the Roman Catholic Church?s support
of the Nazi encroachment) and the late John Paul
II's desire to enfold the Orthodox Churches into
the embrace of ecumenicalism. The new Pope?s
expressed desire to visit Serbia is meeting
continued resistance. In addition, the SOC has
rejected the establishment and acceptance of
other orthodox churches (i.e. the Macedonian and
Montenegrin) in Serbia.

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Prospects for the Future
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14. (C) The priesthood is aging. There were only
40 applicants for 300 fully-funded slots offered
by the Faculty of Religion for students
interested in studying for the priesthood.
Church critics and some moderates believe that
new ideas are stifled and those who have
exposure to the West (particularly clergy drawn
from the Diaspora) are shunted to areas where
their voices will not be heard. Insiders and
critics alike seem to agree that the church is
definitely headed in a more conservative
direction, especially when talking about the
rising leaders. Both Vukomanovic and Djordjevic
believe that the next Patriarch will most likely
come from the group of more hardline Bosnian
bishops, suggesting either Vladika Vasilije
Kacavenda or Metropolitan Nikolaj as the two
most probable successors.


15. (C) As long as conservative nationalists
dominate the government, the GoS and SOC
hardliners are likely to use each other to
mutual advantage. The state helps secure a
privileged place for the SOC in Serbian law and
to encourage more conservative, revanchist
ideology in schools and homes, which in turn
builds support for a hard line from the SOC on
Kosovo and ICTY, which in turn lends moral
authority to the current government's policies.
Should reformist democrats like the DS lead the
next coalition government, though, there may be
more support for moderate viewpoints in the
church.

Polt