Good morning! If I were to tell you that in the Census only 13% of Orthodox people named the Serbian Orthodox Church as their religious community, would you believe me? Because that’s how it is and that’s what the official MONSTAT data says. The majority of 84% of Orthodox believers chose to define themselves in terms of religion, but not church, and pointed out that they are Orthodox Christians. What does this tell us?
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Orthodox people in Montenegro don’t want ethnic church
To be completely clear – the number of those who pointed out the Montenegrin Orthodox Church (CPC) as a church is even smaller than those having named the SPC. About 3%. Thus, the SPC and CPC, together with the marginal number of those who support the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, Eastern Orthodox faith or the Greek, Russian or Romanian Orthodox Church – do not exceed 15% of the total number of Orthodox believers.
The majority of Orthodox people, that is, the vast majority of them in Montenegro, point out that they belong to the Orthodox Christian faith. An incredible 84%. Or in numbers – 373,000 out of 477,000 Orthodox believers!
This is such encouraging information! Not because people did not highlight the SPC, but because this may be an indicator that most people in Montenegro still separate religion from politics.
The question is why this information did not stand out. In response to this question, MONSTAT told CdM that it had registered all Orthodox believers, regardless of their church affiliation, as Orthodox believers and emphasized that in public in accordance with UNECE recommendations. I consulted the recommendations of UNECE and did not come across that specific recommendation, but here I leave it to you to check. You can see them here: https://unece.org/DAM/stats/publications/2015/ECECES41_EN.pdf
Therefore, MONSTAT did not want to publish this, explaining that questions of faith and not of the church were raised. This is a rather slippery answer, bearing in mind that certain religious communities gather around different churches in Montenegro, which, based on the number of people supporting them, occupy a certain position in society.
Therefore, it is not only the number of temples handed over to the Church of Serbia by Dritan and Filip Adzic that is the only criterion by which someone is taken as a relevant representative of a community, but there is also a census. Judging by this census, only 415 people pointed out that they belonged to the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, which, in a vulgar and malicious interpretation, we can use and say in the first place to the RTCG – why do you invite Metropolitan Joanikije II everywhere and present him as the leader of the Orthodox believers, when the CPC, according to the census, has 30 times more believers than him. Or Patriarch Porfirije, who has a maximum of 56,000 Orthodox believers who have chosen the SPC as their church.
Methodije was not “voted” by anyone in the last census.
All kidding aside, you see how important and complicated this issue is. I understand this data to mean that 84% of people do not want the church to be a place for nationalist fights.
Why doesn’t anyone point that out, why doesn’t the media push this information? Isn’t this the best possible information that can lead us on the right path. Here, let the church be neither Serbian nor Montenegrin, let it be Christ’s. Isn’t that how it should be? Let there be an Orthodox Church in Montenegro and let its head reign in Cetinje. Let it bring together 41% of Montenegrins and 34% of Serbs, and let neither of them feel like foreigners or traitors.
Is it possible to do this? Or not?
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of CdM)
