Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States

In spite of Germanus’ patriotic rhetoric and foreign policy services, the
regime noticed nationalistic tendencies in the Serbian Church. The Central
Committee of the League of Communists of Serbia (LCS) put on the agenda
of its forty-first regular session, held on 30 June 1972 in Belgrade, new
currents in Serbian nationalism. Along with addressing other themes, the
conference designated the Serbian Orthodox Church one of the carriers of
the new nationalism. The following is a summary of the LCS findings and
policy guidelines:
The Orthodox Church opposes our policy aimed at reducing the power of
the central state authority. The Church also resents the policy of a greater
equality among Yugoslav nationalities and ethnic minorities. Church leaders
also favor the constitutional model of a federation similar to the Soviet
model as opposed to the Yugoslav decentralized system. Church leaders
work cautiously but persistently to revive the Great Serbian idea. In the
domain of interchurch relations, it is obvious that the Serbian Church is
distrustful and unreceptive toward reforms of the Second Vatican Council
in the Catholic Church. Instead of embracing the Catholic ecumenical
initiative, the Serbian Church began questioning the status of the Serb
minority in Croatia and opened the explosive issue of the Second World
War massacres at Jasenovac and other Ustasˇa crimes while making no
reference to Četnik crimes. The Serbian Orthodox Church is also becoming
more active abroad among Serbian exiles and migrants. The strength of
the Serbian Church is neither in the doctrine (theology) nor in a strictly
religious sphere, and church leaders are aware of this. Backed by the
powerful tradition, the Serbian Church targets the Serbian people’s ethnic
pride and most sensitive emotions pertaining to the Kosovo myth. The
crisis in ethnic relations in Kosovo has worked to the Church’s advantage.
The Church is dramatizing and lamenting what it views as the “disintegration
of Serbdom.” But there is nothing like a disintegration of Serbdom.
There only is a disintegration of statist and centralist politics. ...Now,the
Serbian Orthodox Church claims that it has been for centuries not only a
religious but also a political organization and is being called upon, one
more time in the history of the Serbs, to defend and lead its people, because
no one else seems to be capable of defending Serbian national interest.
The Church argues that Serbia has no patriotic leaders at this moment.
The Church actually wants to lead, that is, to assume political
leadership based on the Great Serbian nationalistic platform in order to
mobilize Serb masses in defense of what the Church defines as the Serbian
national interest. 54
As the Kosovo problem grew more complicated, Serbian communists had
to face the dilemma that Dobrica Ćosić was talking about in 1968: either
the communists will defend the Serbian national cause or anticommunist
nationalists (the Church being one of most prominent) will come to the fore
as defenders of Serbian national interest. The young Serb communist leaders
Latinka Perović and Marko Nikezić were purged as nationalists by Tito in
54 balkan idols