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The post-communist period has seen several wars in regions with a majority of Eastern Orthodox Christians. These conflicts have prompted Eastern Orthodox churches to formulate stances on war and develop new doctrines of righteous war. These responses draw on a long lineage of Eastern Roman and Slavonic traditions, particularly the Cyrillian doctrine of righteous war expounded in the Life of Constantine-Cyril. This paper examines the theological responses of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the wars in the former Yugoslavia, providing a reference point for comparison with the current theological debates and assessment of doctrines of warfare in light of the war in Ukraine. The focus is on the biblical hermeneutics and theological framing of various Serbian-centered doctrines. These new outlines draw on diverse traditions within Slavonic and Eastern Orthodox theology. The paper aims to provide insights into the shaping of Eastern Orthodox positions on war and the theological genesis of justifications for war. The discussion sheds light on the intricate relationship between war and Christianity within the Eastern Orthodox context in Serbia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The four-part paper using the contextual method, which means the method of compilation and content analysis, presents chronologically the discourse and fiveyear engagement, i.e. the activities and contributions of the Serbian Orthodox Church in overcoming the “Migrant Crisis (2015)” in the period 2017-2021. The main thesis of the paper is the culmination of the “Migrant Crisis (2015)” and the engagement of the Serbian Orthodox Church on media, social, and ecumenical levels. The sources we used in the paper were official announcements, encyclicals, episcopal homilies, diocesan magazines and interviews by His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije and bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on archival material in the Diocese of Bosnia or Đakovo and Srijem (Archdiocese of Đakovo-Osijek), we investigated petitions for the return of former Catholics to the Catholic Church. Out of 455 petitions, the Ordinariate in Đakovo approved the return of 433 people. Former Catholics - reverts - transitioned to the Serbian Orthodox Church because of mixed marriages, because of divorce and the possibility of entering into a new church marriage, as well as because of state pressure on Catholic teachers, civil officials, military personnel, doctors and lawyers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After thirty years of uninterrupted rule, the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS) lost the elections in 2020. This paper explores four competing, yet not mutually exclusive, hypotheses that examine the factors contributing to the fall of the DPS. These factors include the conflict between the DPS and the Serbian Orthodox Church, a perception of the country moving in the right direction, the deceleration of the EU integration process, and the declining authority of DPS party leader Milo Djukanović. Bivariate statistics, trend analysis, and regression analysis have been used as methods to test specific hypotheses. Through statistical analysis, it becomes evident that these factors are interconnected and hold significance. However, it can be argued that the negative trends in the country’s direction and the decline in the authority of the party leader were more significant factors compared to the EU support or the conflict with the Serbian Orthodox Church. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is more than the eighth years (2023) since the culmination of the “Migrant Crisis (2015)”, the biggest and most serious since WW2, and in the Serbian theological scientific community, a scientific work with such a topic, overview and research (?) has not yet appeared. In this five-part paper, the engagement, i.e. what were the attitudes, activities, and contributions of the Serbian Orthodox Church in overcoming it during the culmination year (2015-2016) of the “Migrant Crisis (2015)” is presented. The author also provided definitions of the terms: migrant, refugee, asylum seeker, foreigner, internally displaced person, and stateless person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balkan states have remained susceptible to Russian influence in the 21st century due to a concurrence of contemporary and historical factors. In Serbia, such factors have contributed to the high favourability of Russia among the general public, despite government leadership attempts to balance between these sentiments and relationships with the West. To best understand these trends, one of the most compelling examples is the role of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Serbian Orthodox Church in serving as forces to strengthen the shared history of these two nations. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the ROC has served as a vital partner to Putin and to the Russian government in justifying their ideologies, along with the strong transnational presence of the ROC as a soft power. Accordingly, the role of religious institutions as public diplomacy actors is exceedingly important to understand in today’s global setting. For states like Serbia, this presents a setup whereby Russian positions may be shared or reinforced through religious channels. It is, therefore, crucial for scholars, political analysts and public policy makers to better understand the link between religion and public diplomacy, and to formulate policies and programmes that specifically consider activities disseminated by religious institutions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to analyse the possible influence of politics on the ethnic, linguistic, and religious distinctiveness of Montenegrins in relation to Serbs. The influence of politics on the ethnic distinctiveness of Montenegrins has especially been active since the beginning of the 21st century; hence this period represents the main time frame of the analysis. Since the difference between Montenegrins and Serbs is very blurred in terms of ethnic, linguistic, and religious distinctiveness, one of the hypotheses we argue in this paper is about politics, which appears as the main factor that dictates the differences between these two peoples in Montenegro. Consequently, the next hypothesis we argue about is the increased political differences between Serbia and Montenegro, the widened gap between ethnic Montenegrins and Serbs, the increased number of Serbs, and the reduced number of Montenegrins. On the other hand, while harmonious relations between Serbia and Montenegro prevailed and the difference between ethnic Serbs and Montenegrins was not politically encouraged, the number of Montenegrins increased, and the number of Serbs in Montenegro decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The area of Kosovo and Metohija represents the political, religious, economic and cultural center of the medieval Serbian state from the beginning of the 14th century until the Battle of Marica in 1371. The aim of this paper is to present to what extent the topics related exclusively to this space are present in scientific works in the last thirty years, which is an indicator of the attention paid to it in Serbian medieval studies in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Сербское население района города Буды „Табан“, также называемого по данной общине Рацкий город (Рацварош), переживало свой расцвет в 18-ом веке и первой половине 19-ого века. После разрушения сербского православного храма в Буде зимой 1949–1950 годов пострадали не только кафедральный собор Будайской эпархии Сербской праволавной церкви, но и организовавшаяся вокруг него сербская община, проживавшая здесь не меньше трехсот лет. Кроме сохранившихся предметов разрушенного храма память о былой табанской общине сербов хранят – посредственным или непосредственным образом – и сербские кириллические продукты Университетской типографии в Буде. Поскольку кириллическая деятельность данной типографии играла решающую роль в истории будайских сербов, а также и в сербской культуре в общей сложности между 1796 и 1850 годами, именно это период, из которого в типографических продуктах данной печатни и в архивных документах, относящихся к ним содержатся ценные сведения о сербах в Буде. В предлагаемом сообщении на материале документов, хранящихся в Венгерской национальной библиотеке им. Сечени рассматриваются вопросы, как сербы в Буде, в том числе и сербская интеллигенция, проживающая некоторое время в городе, принимали участие в работе Университетской типографии, какие печатные продукты они поддерживали как пренумеранты или заказывали для себя. На основе данных книг предоставляется возможность сделать определенные выводы не только о книжной культуре, об ориентации в области просвещения, но и об общественных ролях, об экономической силе, о формировании национального идентитета рассматриваемой общины. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article characterises and contrasts the most visible changes in the Serbian Church's public role with less visible and analysed trends among its believers. A very tight intertwining of the religious and the political elevated the Serbian Church's institutional position, secured an unprecedented construction boom, and even influenced some devotional practices of the faithful, especially through victimhood-oriented collective identity building. Yet our research demonstrates the ambiguous impact of these changes on believers, whose lives revolve around the liturgical cycle, fasting, and reverence for monasticism. These differences have already created rifts within the Church. In a trend that it is unrecognised by secular observers, it seems that some believers are increasingly differentiating between their ethnic and confessional identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this article is to highlight the religious dimensions of the Covid-19 pandemic in Serbia through sociological interpretation of the institutional role of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC), including the process of the adjustment of clergy and believers to pandemic circumstances. Such an adjustment involves religious discourse, ritual practice, community and institution. A greater attention is thus dedicated to the uniqueness of the church institution in its relation to a broader social community, especially with regard to the discrepancies between the church practices and official state measures and restrictions. This also implies the necessity to mitigate tensions and prevent potential rifts between the religious and secular communities, or church and state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The question of nationality in the Balkans, especially in the South-Slavic territory, has always been burdensome and it has historical, legal, and political connotations. After the bloody breakup of the former Yugoslavia, the question of Montenegrins’ national identity and their relationship with Serbia and the Serbs has intensified over the past twenty years. The relationship between these two nations became strained on the eve of the First World War and this culminated in 1918, when Belgrade, with the help of Montenegrin Serbs, annexed the internationally recognized Kingdom of Montenegro. Since then, the branch declaring itself to be Serb in the national sense remains strong among the Montenegrins. However, the Montenegrin population voted for independence in the referendum held in 2006. Since then, there have been two views on national and state history, culture, and identity of the smallest postYugoslav republic. Fifteen years after the restoration of statehood (21 May 2021), the population is as divided as it was at the time of independence. In this paper, we place special emphasis on the 1918 Podgorica Assembly, which is the starting point of Serbian-Montenegrin disputes regarding nationality and statehood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the disputes that existed in the interwar period over the recognition of a Romanian Orthodox bishopric in Yugoslavia (The official name 'Yugoslavia' was only adopted in 1929. From 1918 to 1929, the state was officially called the Serbo-Croatian-Slovenian Kingdom. For the sake of simplicity, I will use the name Yugoslavia throughout this article.) and a Serbian Orthodox bishopric in Romania. The reason for this was the existence of two ethnically distinct Orthodox Churches (Serbian and Romanian) on the territory of the dualistic Hungarian monarchy before 1918, but both with de facto autocephalous status and territorial overlap. They came into being after the decision of the Synod of Bishops of the Hungarian Orthodox Metropolis to separate the existing parishes and dioceses along ethnic lines. After the break-up of the dualistic monarchy at the end of the First World War, one of the Serbian Orthodox dioceses landed on the territory of Yugoslavia (Vršac) and the second on the territory of Romania (Timişoara). However, both Romanian bishoprics (Arad and Caransebeş) ended up in Romania. Under these circumstances, several Romanian parishes in the Yugoslav Banat remained without a direct episcopal hierarchy. As a result, diplomatic negotiations began between the Romanian and Yugoslav governments and between the hierarchs of the Orthodox Churches of Romania and Yugoslavia on the establishment of a Romanian diocese on Yugoslav territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using documents, books and articles written by Nicola Velimirović during World War I, this article investigates his attitude towards this conflagration and shows how his Christian views influence his outlook on this topic. Shared during his visits to the USA and England and via lectures given in venues like Westminster Abbey or Oxford University, his ideas make him a militant for peace and, at the same time, a man who defends his country's cause in front of the AustroHungarian abuses. Investigating his writings from this point of view is important because he manages to show a different face of the future Serbian bishop and brings to the fore his concerns regarding his contemporary society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the fall of Communism, the Serbian Orthodox Church has experienced a significant revival, part of which has been the recollection of past events, personas, sites and shrines in order to re-establish its position in the post-Yugoslav republics. One of these processes of recollection is devoted to the cult of St. Jovan Vladimir (d.1016) and the sites associated with him in southern Montenegro. This article analyzes the forging of this memorialisation in its material form in the Serbian Orthodox Church as well as the erasure of rival processes of memorialisation. The reconstruction of memories and re-consecration of shrines is taking place across Eastern Europe today and the purpose of this study is to identify the key factors that determine the success or otherwise of such projects. It is focussed, in particular, on the 'consecrating' of four key sites closely related to the cult, all of which have been trans-national and trans-religious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a reflection on a relatively controversial phenomenon in the Serbian Orthodox Church, namely saintsavaism (serb. svetosavlje). The controversy accompanying the term is related to its association with the Serbian nationalism that erupted during the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990's. This article aims to demonstrate that this particular interpretation of saintsavaism is, in fact, only one of at least four distinct understandings of the notion. Moreover, this article will argue that the author who contributed most significantly to the development of saintsavaism as the guiding principle of the Serbian Church to this day, namely, Justin Popovic (1894–1979), envisioned saintsavaism as, indeed, a totalizing worldview, and recognized its national significance, without, however, reducing it to simple 'nationalism'. In order to make this case clear, the article will analyze in detail Popovic's seminal work on saintsavaism (available only in Serbian), Saintsavaism as a Philosophy of Life (1953). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The basic question of my paper is: Do modern Orthodox Christians see their place in active participation in social life, as a form of witnessing to the world of Christ who suffers with the infirm and the sick, which becomes especially important in circumstances such as the current Covid-19 pandemic? That is why I oppose a “proud” (with quotation marks, meaning: self-sufficient) Christian to a socially responsible Christian who understands his faith as a social praxis, not only as a cult-oriented activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the question of the dynamics of relations between the political power elite, the LGBT population and the Serbian Orthodox Church in the overall context of the Europeanization of Serbia. An insight is provided into the mechanism(s) through which the political elite in Serbia reproduces its dominant position. Serbian society is depicted as a captured one, and this is illustrated by empirical findings from a survey and in-depth interviews. This is followed by a focus on the political elite's instrumentalization of the issue of sexual freedom in obtaining international support for maintenance of power through "tactical Europeanization". After this the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church vis-à-vis the state and its alleged support for LGBT issues is considered. The Church seems to have "realized" that being silent on the LGBT issue is more profitable in a symbolic, as well as, in a material sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Serbian Orthodox Church has been described in scholarship as having had a significant impact onto the social and political life of Serbia, especially since the wars of the nineties. With the coming of the age of the Internet and social science automation, however, more options have gradually become available to researchers in the recent years. For this reason, this article will tackle the official rhetoric of the Serbian Orthodox Church in relation to the sociopolitical with the assistance of social science automation. Forming an examination via the methodological lens of Operational Code Analysis, this article delves into the Church's discourse on Kosovo, via heavy vetting of all official statements given on the website of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It also expands upon the initial methodology – Operational Code Analysis – to an analysis of an institution with a uniform discourse, which has so far not seen light in scholarly production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The formation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918 created a new situation for the nations still living in the Habsburg monarchy. Fundamental changes happened not only in terms of the constitutional law conditions, but also in all areas of the life of the society. The changes also affected the area of the church and religion. The democratic political regime guaranteed people freedom of religion. This fact is reflected in the reinforcement of secular tendencies, but at the same time there were changes and a revival of activities both inside established churches and in churches and religious societies which the political regime of the monarchy had suppressed. The inter-church transfer movement also affected the community professing the values of Eastern Christianity. The Orthodox movement had a spontaneous and unrestrained character. For this reason, the inexperienced state administration invited the Serbian Orthodox Church to help organize the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia, and so it sent a mission led by Dositheus (Vasić), the bishop of Niš, to the member country of the Little Entente. The bishop, who was mainly active on the territory of the Czech lands and in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, tried to establish the Orthodox faith in the Czech lands within the newly established National Church of Czechoslovakia (Hussite) and supported the emancipatory efforts of a group of Orthodox Czechs who had converted to Orthodoxy before World War I. In Subcarpathian Ruthenia, he sought to create a Carpathian Orthodox eparchy under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The authors recall the main features of Dositheus's Orthodox mission and evaluate its results. They conclude that the mission did not meet the original expectations as a result of both objectively unfavourable circumstances and its own errors. On the other hand, the authors perceive the bishop's work as an important chapter in the history of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia, which extends to Czechoslovak-South Slavic relations in the interwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in the Kingdom of Serbia, under the Constitution and other laws, the Orthodox Church had a privileged position over other recognised religions such as Islamic, Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. Archival documents show that, in practice, legal provisions and international commitments regarding minority religious communities were not respected, and that there was proselytising i.e. conversion to the Orthodox faith, that was not voluntary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A small country of Europe in terms of her surface area and population, Kosovo is a multi-faith country where various religions and religious groups live together. A great majority of her population was Christian at the Roman Empire (and Orthodox at the Byzantine time), and Muslim at the Ottoman time and today. Orthodox, Catholic and Evangelical Churches, Judaism and some other religious movements as well as Islam still live in the country. This article, after briefly summarizing the history of Christianity in Kosovo, deals with the relations between Muslims and Catholic, Orthodox and Evangelical churches past and today. It also evaluates the positive and negative aspects of the Muslim-Christian relations in Kosovo, and gives some observations about the future of these relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since gaining independence in 2008, Kosovo’s constitutional design has been based on the principles of civil society normatively respecting the rights of all minorities. Even though no open conflict has taken place since 1999, except for individual interethnic incidents, Kosovo is still at the stage of post-conflict management. The Serbian community feels strongly attached to Serbia, while the Albanians do not want to give political autonomy to the Kosovo Serbs because they fear this could lead to a permanent division and eventual separatism. Based on research, the author pinpoints that a key cleavage is essentially the cultural one. The recent vote in the Assembly of UNESCO has intensified the hostile tone between Belgrade and Priština. Serbia considers Kosovo its Holy Land, the “Serbian Jerusalem”, due to a large number of Orthodox churches and monasteries found there, while the Albanian side believes that this cultural treasure inherently belongs to Kosovo and that the Orthodox monasteries were built on the foundations of Illyrian temples. This paper analyzes the imposed political dimension of cultural heritage with religious and mythological backgrounds. There is a great desire among the Kosovo authorities that it become a member of UNESCO, thereby reaffirming its international legal personality and stopping the efforts of the Serbs to have the Orthodox cultural heritage still listed as Serbian. The issue of cultural heritage has a direct impact on interethnic relations and contains the capacity to paralyze all other multiethnic institutions. The author analyzes the difference between the normative framework and the implementation of mechanisms for the protection of cultural heritage as well as the activities of Belgrade and Priština in the battle for ownership of cultural heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with a work by a contemporary Serbian composer Miroslav Misa Savic (b. 1954): St. Lazarus Waltz for one or two grand pianos, with or without children's toy pianos. Since St. Lazarus is a children's holiday, the composer's idea was to depict children by toy pianos, while the grand pianos are 'parents'. The waltz exists in several versions: from the first one, where the children pianos are quite small and their musical parts very restricted, to the version for two 'adult' pianos, which describes the moment in life when children have grown up and left their parental home. Aside from exploring these musical 'family ties', Savić implements a simple yet ingenious constructive principle in all versions of this waltz. The structure of the piece is based on the exploitation of the system of equal temperament and on the Fibonacci row, and this frame is filled with several layers of musical references, including: Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers who wrote 'well-tempered' piano music; repetitive/processual minimalism, a style that Savic and his peers brought into Serbian music, but have since evolved in different directions; the Serbian tradition of romantic salon piano pieces; finally, the Orthodox tradition, but referenced in a way very different from the 'neo-Orthodox' trend that has been present in Serbian art music since the late 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with the relation of the dominant religious confession in Serbia towards non-heterosexuality. After considering the attitude of Christianity in general, and Orthodoxy in particular, towards "different" sexual orientations, some of the statements of senior Church officials are cited as an illustration of that attitude. After that, some of the findings of the research of the Serbian population on the attitude towards religion and homosexuality are provided. A special form of religious nationalism that exists in Serbia is associated with the intensity and content of the negative attitude towards homosexuality. At the end of the paper the results of research attitudes towards homosexuality in 39 countries are presented, where special attention is given to the connection of religion with (non)acceptance of homosexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In post-Yugoslav countries, national identity seems to be increasingly defined by the formulation of a traditional discourse on sexuality and gender, culminating in a growing interference of religious institutions with national debates and policies on LGBT - rights. In this paper we aim to gain more insight into the discursive effects of such sexual nationalist discourse by exploring responses of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the 2014 Belgrade Pride parade. Drawing from theories on religious and sexual nationalism and queer geography, we will argue that while the Serbian Orthodox discourse on homosexuality is becoming more secular, this secularization of public speech is compensated by a strategy of reclaiming the streets of Belgrade through politically charged public religious ritual. As the church is in this way making its anti-LGBT attitude physical and visible, Serbian citizens are increasingly requested to agree to Church teachings on sexuality and gender as a prerequisite for religious participation, resulting in an increasing divide between those "within" and "without" the community of Orthodox Serbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During its history of the formation and survival in the context of a direct territorial and political contact with challenges of Roman Catholicism and Islam, the Serbian Orthodox Church has developed a strategy of conservative reaction that does not accept changes or the challenges of modernity. As the counterweight to the lack of strong borders of the Serbian people, the Serbian Orthodox Church has developed strong boarders that protect the Orthodox identity. Paradoxically, although it was stronger than the state in which it developed the religious identity of the citizens, the Church has always remained in the shadow of the state, with the need to be protected and accepted. Of indicators of religiosity, the strongest part of the identity is the icon as a symbolically open system for the presence of the holy. Social aspects of Orthodox religiosity have been maintained for centuries by Slavas, family rituals that carry the message of ancestry and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This piece takes stock of the current activities and influence of Serbia’s far Right, which inherited the extreme nationalism that informed Milošević and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. That such nationalism was never fully driven from Serbia’s social and political life has led to the tacit support of fascist ideals in sections of the police, the Serbian Orthodox Church and certain government spokespeople. Violent attacks on LGBT and Roma communities and human rights violations are compounded by the state’s lack of response. The author explores the dominant political climate that fails to recognise the threat from the far Right and equates its political extremism with that of groups campaigning to protect human rights. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

New church construction in the cities of Serbia in the last 25 years is a consequence of restrictions and the marginalisation of religion during the pre-1989 socialist period. In the period from 1945 to 1989, almost no new churches were built, and urban planners in Serbia have not developed appropriate selection criteria for the location of new religious buildings. Religious buildings built in the period after 1990 were built on sites that were selected ad hoc without considering the needs of believers and churches. In the last 25 years, more than 400 churches have been built in rural areas and cities, which influenced the reshaping of the cultural landscape. In this paper, attention is given to determining the required number of churches, their location, and the distribution of the urban structure in relation to various relevant factors. The specific spatial organisation of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the homeland and in the diaspora is emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the model of spousal relationships that promote the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church that it evolves with the transformation of the traditional Serbian and Russian society and the family in contemporary society and the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After a brief overview of the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the article documents the dramatic changes in the last two decades that resulted in the unforeseen political, social and spiritual vigour the Serbian Orthodox Church currently enjoys. The images of vitality and growth, however, conceal problems and dilemmas which they bring along. Several of these are singled out, such as the clericalisation and centralisation of decision making, lack of transparency and the worrying neglect of many important spheres of church praxis - for example, education. The article concludes that the bitter division between conservatives and reformers among bishops will continue to haunt the church as it faces theserious challenges that lie ahead in relation to its mission. Furthermore, in theatmosphere of fragile peace in former Yugoslavia, all churches, including the Serbian Orthodox Church, need to dissociate themselves from extreme nationalism in their ranks before any attempts at inter-confessional dialogue and peace building can make sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past five years, the Serbian Orthodox Church has been criticized by liberal public opinion in Serbia for maintaining organizational and ideological links with Christian right-wing groups whose political discourse includes antisemitic themes. Byford looks at two specific responses to this public criticism, one from the Serbian Orthodox Church and the other from the Christian right, and examines the rhetoric employed to counter the allegations of antisemitism. The dominant discourse in these responses is denial , stating that there is, and never has been, any antisemitism in Serbia or within Orthodox Christianity. In examining various aspects of this denial, Byford demonstrates that generalized statements about Serbian and Orthodox tolerance manage the moral accountability of those who find themselves under criticism by turning public attention away from the ongoing controversy and by confining the problem to a small number of individual extremists on the far right. He also argues that, by helping to generate a consensus about Serbian tolerance, the denial implicitly perpetuates the very same xenophobic and antisemitic elements of Serbian nationalist discourse that it is meant to negate and refute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobilization of the countryside has direct consequences for political discourse about national values and in times of social crisis, the 'conservatism' of the countryside has the potential to assume an aggressive, offensive posture. When rural mobilization is accompanied by religious revival, group Ioyality and so-called 'traditional' values are sacralized. When rural mobilization ethnic mobilization, and religious revival occur simultaneously, it signifies that the society is undergoing profound destabilization. Examining the case of Serbia, this article argues that while Serbia is, in cultural and social terms, predominantly rural in character, Titoist Communism imposed. The values of the city on that culture, while the 1987 coup by Slobodan Milosevic represented, among other drugs, the triumph of the countryside over the city in Serbia. This article begins by characterizing the countryside in cultural terms, provides documentation, of the importance of rural traditions in Serbian society, documents the rural character of the Serbian national movement, connecting its ideology and behaviour with populist appeals, and examines the contribution made by the Serbian Orthodox Church to the mobilization of the Serbian countryside. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary Serbian Orthodox texts, Kosovo is often referred to as the Serbian "Jerusalem": a city calling for a Christian defense. All Serbs are bound to heed the call in keeping with the Kosovo "covenant" or "pledge" dating back to the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, when Serbian troops, led by Prince Lazar, were defeated by the invading Muslim Ottoman army. The battle and Kosovo in general have since then assumed a central symbolic role in Serbian nationalism and the Serbian Orthodox Church. Furthermore, it has been claimed that the imagery and narratives of Kosovo were the ideological backdrop for the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s. This article investigates the development of the Serbian narratives and imagery pertaining to Kosovo and their modern form in the Serbian Orthodox Church in order to trace what type of imagery is dominant. The main focus will be on whether and to what extent the narratives of Christian defense and holy Serbian warriors fighting in the name of Christ are dominant. This investigation seeks to discuss whether the Kosovo imagery and narratives are formed upon and influenced by a broader Christian European antemurale myth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]