While news columns are filled with information on alleged Patriarch Pavle`s resignation and election of the new chief of the SPC, noticeably is ignored the question regarding the Church announcing its attitude concerning the direction Serbia should go and its opinion of the EU.
According to Mirko Djordjevic, sociologist of religion and publicist, current turmoil over the election of the new Patriarch is directly connected with the Church`s taking position over European integration and the future of Serbia.
"In episcopacy, that has 38 episcopes, more than ever before, two currents exist - pro-European and anti-European ones. Until now, anti-European current has been dominant and its stance is that the EU is something Catholic and something strange to our traditional values. This opinion is based on the works of theologians Justin Popovic and Nikolaj Velimirovic who, in their theological works, have described Europe as a decadence, darkness and conspiracy, thus inspiring hatred towards Europe," explains Djordjevic. He is also adding that currently significant number of episcopes understand imminent European integrations.
Djordjevic states that the Church also has to prepare itself for joining the EU. Although the Union is secular, big churches in the EU cooperate within the European Church Conference.
"New Patriarch should be relatively young, brave episcope who would turn towards Europe for the Church needs to be modernised. The Church has to be brought up to date since it still nourishes many old answers to challenges of the new time. Therefore it is necessary that it has new responses to new questions and challenges," he explains.
The heads of the SPC have almost never come out with their reasoned opinion on Serbia`s way to the EU except several younger generation bishops, such as the Branicevo Bishop Ignjatije and Zahumlje-Herzegovina Bishop Grigorije.
In April 2005 for the Pozarevac-based newspaper "Rec naroda" Bishop Ignjatije directly stated that the then Serbia and Montenegro joining the EU could not have anything negative. According to him, the EU would be the first test of our whole identity and entire heritage and therefore we should withstand all the temptations and criticism coming from all sides.
"As Christians and people coming from one culture, no matter whether the others are aware of it or not, we should bring forward our visions to the world since we must not unify and get into groove giving up all that is ours and this is something that Europe does not want us to do," said Bishop Ignjatije. He also added, "We have a chance in such a community to promote something valuable, something ours."
Bishop Ignjatije said "the proponents of the thesis that joining Europe will mean disaster are wrong and such judgment is not viable." He remarked "it is possible those are claustrophobic people with general hatred towards the others; such people, therefore, also hate their own people."
"What worries us the most is Europe`s blackmailing manner and its try to present itself as a paradise. We should be careful of various blackmails but not technical conditions that should be brought into accord with the European Union," stated Bishop Ignjatije.
Thanks to these statements, Bishop Ignjatije has become one of the few bishops who has given his reasoned opinion and pro-European stances accompanied with rational analysis of advantages and faults of the European integrations.
The Church - State coupling is very strong. Djordjevic points out two disputable elements concerning mutual influence.
"The first being the fact that during the last eight years the State has urged clericalisation and now we are witnesses of such policy disastrous results. Second, after France, in its Constitution Serbia has the church communities issue best solved while at the same time the `medieval` Law on Church Communities is still in force," explains Djordjevic.
Unlike Serbia, in the neighbouring Croatia even in theological schools the role and contribution of the Catholic Church to the Croatian EU integration process are discussed. In 2007, former Foreign Minister Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has openly stated that the Catholic Church in Croatia had considerably contributed to Croatia coming closer to the EU. She has also pointed out the Croatian Bishop Conference President Cardinal Josip Bozanic`s stand that the state has to prepare thoroughly for joining the EU, thus informing on that and including in that procedure as more citizens as possible.
While the headquarters of the SPC officially has no reactions to the majority need for the State to become the part of the EU, the public has been informed through the press that, during the Serbian and Montenegrin Christian Churches delegation visit to Berlin and Brussels, one of influential bishops had spoken on the European perspectives of the Balkan countries.
"Our view is that European integrations should not include only economic, politic, and security aspects but also deeper understanding that should enclose mutual values and living in the spirit of those values in order to establish compliance and unity of different peoples, traditions, and customs in Europe," said the Backa Bishop Irinej.
Nevertheless, it is still not clear what the official SPC stance is.
On the other hand, the influence of John Paul II was essential in speeding up European integrations of his native Poland. The moment the Polish society has been hesitating regarding the EU joining, among other things also because of the local bishops` influence, the Pope John Paul has decided to encourage the leaders of the Central and Eastern Europe and urge them to hurry up with the EU integrations.
Celebrating the day when the Saint Adalbert founded the first Roman Catholic Diocese in Poland in the small town of Gniezno, the Pope has invited seven presidents - Aleksander Kwasniewski of Poland, Arpad Goncz of Hungary, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, Michal Kovac of Slovakia, Leonid Kuchma of Ukraine, Algirdas Brazauskas of Lithuania and the German President, Roman Herzog.
The Pope has not directly mentioned the membership in NATO or the EU but advised the leaders to follow suit of St. Adalbert, missionary preaching both the Slavs and Western Europe. The Pope has also talked about two lungs, Eastern and Western, necessary for Europe to breathe, adding his dream had been for the Eastern lung to be as important as the Western one.
The message has been clear that the leaders had to work on connecting different cultures, and also on democratic institutions and economies development.
The new SPC Patriarch will face the similar task since beside the position towards the European future of Serbia, public is expecting to hear the Church`s attitude towards, say, corruption and not from the standpoint of daily politics but the viewpoint of ethics.
Government and the Republic President have been avoiding expressing their opinion on the future of the SPC. President Tadic has briefly said that was the internal matter of the Church he did not want to interfere with. Only Minister of Religion Bogoljub Sijakovic has gathered courage to take a position in the name of the State regarding the ongoings in the Church.
"We, as believers and citizens of this country, expect the election of the new Patriarch will present our Church as the one that always keeps abreast of the times and is in the spirit of the times we are living in," said Sijakovic.
Within the project "Churches and European Integration" the group of the European and American professors at the Helsinki University has been studying this phenomena and concluded that even in Estonia, where the stance of the Church is not the dominant one, the Lutheran Church leaders had been calling on their believers to vote for joining the EU. However, in this state, one of the most secular among the EU newcomers, integration opponents have used exactly the arguments of religious nature. The EU has been demonised and compared with the Roman Empire that does not respect God and Christianity.
General outcome of this survey was that, in spite of numerous suspicions regarding concrete steps in forming the European unity, churches have helped more than they have obstructed European integration processes.
Mirko Djordjevic points out that the new Patriarch and the whole SPC have to turn to Europe.
"It is absolutely essential for the Church to make an ecumenical step forward. In layman`s words, people should open up towards Catholics, Protestants and other Christians. We should not forget that we, the Serbs, are not the only Christians, and therein we should seek for the Christian unity, meaning the unity in diversity," explains Djordjevic.
* Nenad Radicevic is a foreign affairs journalist with Politika daily** Published: 2008/10/31
