Some Present-day Problems of State-Church
Relationships
in
the Legal Texts and the
Social-political Context
Table of Contents
I. Secularization and Desecularization:
Between Nietzsche’s “God is dead” and Dostoyevsky’s
“If there is no God, then everything is permissible”
1. Religion – the essence and the existence
6. Latent functions: religion as an emblem of
the community
7. Types of relationships
between state and Church in the European countries. Is there a European identity/standard in this sphere?
8. The state
and Church relations in
1. Problems of the
“nationalization” of the myth of God’s elect in
2. Specific national features
of the myth of the national mission.
3. National particularities
of the mythology of mission. The Bulgarian case.
4. The withering of the
national mission myth in
III. Phenomenology of the
Problem
1.Legal Issues of State-Church
Relationships in
1.1. The legal
void and the way towards the law
1.2. The Draft
Law of Religious Freedom /2002/
1.3. Critique
and discussion of the Draft Law of Religious Freedom
1.4. The Draft
Law on Freedom of Belief, Churches, Religious Communities and
Religious Associations /2004/
1.5. Further
evolution of the 2004 Draft
1.6. Latest developments and
versions of the 2004 Draft Law
1.7. Conclusions and Recommendations
1.8. Some Present-day Problems of the Religious
Situation in
1.9. The Church
and the Politics
2.1. Legal
regulation and religious differences
2.2.
The politics: beyond the religious and the ethnic differences?
2.3. The politics, the nation and the Macedonian
Orthodox Church
2.4. Cases and issues regarding the legal status of
religious communities and groups in the state
2.5.
The elaboration of the new democratic law: latest developments
2.6.
Conclusions and Recommendations
3. The Bulgarian Religious Situation Now:
the Law and the Social-political Atmosphere
3.1. Freedom of religious
convictions and the equality of religious confessions before the law: general
principles
3.2. Rights relevant to religious activity,
education, charitable works
3.3. Property and Financing
3.4. Conditions for acquiring legal status and the
role of the state
3.5. Critical analysis of the Act
3.6. The Schism, the Political Parties and the Act
3.7. Conclusions and Recommendations
3.8.
The religious situation
in the present-day Bulgaria
3.9. The Bulgarian situation
of Religious Education in School
The democratization of relationships between state and Church in Serbia and Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bulgaria is taking place in the context of the topical political process of accession of these countries to the European Union. Although this process is at a different stage for each of the three countries (Bulgaria is the most advanced, having signed, on April 25, 2005, an Agreement for Accession to the European Union in January 2007), in all cases democratization requires changes and development in two basic directions: 1/harmonizing legislature on state-Church relationships with the international legal tools and the European legal standards; 2/forming a favorable social context for adequate and effective operation of the relevant laws.
My analysis and
recommendations will be focused mainly
on the first direction, for: 1/dynamic
and important changes are currently taking place with regard to it;
2/comparative analysis of the state and problems of this process in all three
countries that I am studying, would be useful as a means of mutually “checking
our compasses” and obtaining additional information and arguments on disputed
issues in the current legislative process.
The
comparative
picture of the current state of the legal framework of state-Church
relationships in the countries being studied shows:
In all three countries modern democratic constitutions have been adopted, which guarantee equal civil rights and liberties with regard to thought, conscience, religion, association; also guaranteed is the equality of national minorities and of religious communities. However, the legislature regulating relationships between state and Church, which is meant to give a concrete and effective legal framework of the general constitutional assertions, is at a different stages for each of the countries:
- Since 1993, when the Law on the Legal
Situation of Religious Communities in the Republic of Serbia was annulled;
there is a dangerous legal vacuum with regard to the relationships between
state and religious communities: since 2002, three draft laws have been worked
out and presented for discussion; they met with criticism on the part of small
religious communities, national and international human rights organizations,
and even some of the traditional churches; currently an improved version is
being prepared of the draft “Law on Freedom of Belief, Churches, Religious
Communities and Religious Associations” of July 2004.
-
Since 1997, a Law on Religious Communities and
Religious Groups was passed in the Republic of Macedonia, the basic articles of
which were rejected by the Constitutional Court as unconstitutional and not in
harmony with international legal tools in this sphere. This fact makes the law
inadequate as a regulatory tool; currently a new draft law is being worked out.
-
Since 2002 there is an operative Religious
Denominations Act in the Republic of Bulgaria, which takes into account the
basic European standards and international legal tools, but which has
periodically been criticized on separate points by some parties and human
rights organizations and by the structures of the European Commission, which
implies that this law will evolve and be perfected in the future.
The
aim of the current analysis is: 1/ to highlight the disparities between
separate article of the /draft/ laws and: a/ general constitutional principles;
b/ other articles of these same /draft/ laws; c/ international legal tools; d/
practices and trends in most European countries; 2/ to reveal the causes of
these contradictions; 3/ to offer recommendations for removing these
contradictions.
This slow and painful evolution is a result of the complex
situation of the legislator in the studied countries. He has to move between
the Scylla of European imperatives and standards, presented in the criticisms
by NGOs and by small religious communities, and the Charybdis
of internal political circumstances, mass attitudes, the real social authority
and social status of some of the religious communities, and xenophobic
attitudes. This is where the deeper meaning and philosophy of our analysis of
national legal texts lies; they are not only components of a universal, global,
and standardized legal universe, but are embedded in a specific social context
and the people involved, the balance between people generate the texts.
Moreover, even if the texts of the laws were to be literally adopted and copied
from the developed democratic countries, still the question of the application
of these texts would remain with so much the greater weight, the question of
their acceptance as an organic part of the respective culture.
The
Introduction of the study analyzes the secularization/desecularization question and the historical context of the
above issues.
The overview of the basic
aspects of the religious ethos and the general cultural function of religion in
pre-modern society, provides arguments in support of the view that
secularization is a continuous process; as for the contemporary processes of
vitalization of religion, which certain authors have denoted as desecularization (P. Berger, G. Davie, K. Dobbelaere, and others), I consider them to be a reaction
against some of the extreme aspects of secularization, i.e. excessive
rationalization, bureaucratization, scientism, social standardization, rather
than its complete rejection as a concept.
The democratization of state
and Church relations in the contemporary Balkan countries can not be analyzed
and understood without refering to the historical
background of the processes and especially to the interaction between the
religion and the historical myths, related to the national identities. In one of these
countries, Serbia, the Eastern Orthodox Church has been a powerful generator of
and channel for the intensification of the national identity, in collaboration
with the political elite. In another country, Bulgaria, the Eastern Orthodox Church
has been occupied with politically produced internal ecclesiastic problems and
divisions and has remained aside from these trends and roles.
I. Secularization and Desecularization: Between Nietzsche’s “God is dead” and Dostoyevsky’s “If there is no God, then everything is
permissible”
1. Religion – the essence
and the existence
The process of
secularization, ushered in by the French Revolution, not only separated the
Church from the State, but deprived religion of its absolute prerogatives with
regard to the moral aspect of human relationships, which became the object of
the secular educational system, based on rationality and science; as for
control and sanctions, these were assumed by the legal sphere.
Long before this,
philosophers and thinkers had begun to look upon religion as a necessary though
outdated instrument of the moral and political sphere or else as a handicap to
progress and enlightenment (Kant, Rousseau, Feuerbach,
Marx); finally Freud interpreted it as an infantile stage of human development.
The development of science
and technology, industrialization, the rational construction of the social
sphere under capitalism, eliminated the need for a softening of virtual
reality, which function was fulfilled by religion: nature and society were now
appropriated directly, practically, and adjusted to human needs.
At the end of the 19th
century Nietzsche proclaimed definitively that “God is dead”, while Dostoyevsky formulated the dangerous consequences of this
cultural fact: “If there is no God, then everything is permissible.”
The overview of the basic
aspects of the religious ethos and the general cultural function of religion in
pre-modern society, provides arguments in support of the view that
secularization is a continuous process; as for the contemporary processes of
vitalization of religion, which certain authors have denoted as desecularization (P. Berger, G. Davie, K. Dobbelaere, and others), I consider them to be a reaction
against some of the extreme aspects of secularization, i.e. excessive
rationalization, bureaucratization, scientism, social standardization, rather
than its complete rejection as a concept.
These features of
contemporary developed democratic societies, and secularized Europe appears to
be unique by them (G. Davie), give rise to the natural human urge to
spiritual-emotional communion and to revive the feeling of the sacred and of
salvation; religion also tries to respond to the deficit of such feelings,
especially the renewed forms of religion, such as the new religious movements.
But these processes are more
or less partial, affecting separate groups of people, whereas the traditional
religions continue to lose their hold on the societies of today that are
abnormally devoted to the consumer, to pleasure, to pluralism of values, social
techniques of control, in other words, to a type of person that is completely
the contrary of the traditional religious man and ethos.
The 20th century
saw the continuation of the process of pushing religion out of the public into the
private sphere, especially in traditionally Christian countries. At the same
time, due to the weakened social control and the growth of personal liberty of
religious experience and practice (with the exception of totalitarian
countries), interesting and various changes were evident in religion: a
weakening of the connections of believers with the traditional churches (G. Davie’s “believing without belonging”); the formalized
approach to the ritual aspect of religion (“belonging without believing”); the appearance
of untraditional religious formations (new religious movements); the synthesis
of various religious traditions in order to connect faith more closely with the
life problems and needs of people.
Researchers also note a
vacillating downward trend in the number of religious believers, a trend that
is connected especially with the taking over by the state and other secular
institutions of the social functions of the churches (to educate, create a
social bond and be the support of national, ethnic, professional and other
identities).
The
meta-theoretical level of analysis is defined by several key methodological
issues; if sciences of religion fail to solve these issues, they could not hope
to achieve a new theoretical identity adequate to our times and reliable. The
object of particularly active debate are the following: 1/is the secularization
paradigm no longer valid or does the notion of secularization need to be
reformulated; 2/ is there really a modern trend toward the weakening of
religion, a trend away from religion, or is there rather a crisis of the
theory, of the need for change in the contents of the concepts of religion, the
sacred, God; 3/ what is the borderline separating religious from
quasi-religious formations and practices, such as the new religions, religious mobilization in
conflict situations, the connection of religion with various worldly movements
of feminist, fundamentalist, Marxist, or environmentalist kinds, etc.
The striving for salvation
through ethical action is the specific and explicit essence of religion, while
its secondary, latent functions consist in the sacralization
of social unity and identity /B. Wilson “Religion in a Sociological
Perspective”/.
*
Anthropology, philosophy,
literature have for centuries sought the answer to the question ‘What is man?’,
what differentiates humans from other living beings? Some authors have seen the
specific nature of man as lying in human reason; others, in the ability to
labor; others, in laughter; still others, in politics. But besides all this and
perhaps above all this, man is a suffering being. This aspect has for ages been
the spiritual patent, the reserved area of religions.
One of the Four Noble Truths
in Buddhism is: “Birth is suffering, maturing is suffering, sickness is
suffering, death is suffering, grief and weeping, pain and despair are
suffering, affiliation with the unpleasant is suffering, parting from the
pleasant is suffering, to lack what one desires is suffering”. The desire to
decrease human suffering and fulfil life has given
birth to art, religion, and, strange as it may seem, to politics.
The sicknesses of body and
soul are experiences that connect people, regardless of native country, race,
financial position, or power. What is more, often enough, when we look behind
the furious pursuit of riches and power, behind the excessive pride in race,
family descent, historical past, we find man’s inner need to escape from some
kind of suffering and ill. The ailments of the body are usually the result of
pains of the soul, pains of unrequited love, of parting, infidelity, of the
envy of others, of one’s own pride or faithlessness.
The idea of initial sin in
Christianity, of Karma in Hinduism, have also gone in the same direction: although
in a negative aspect, they have suggested the idea that there is a connection
between the deeds of past, present, and future generations and individuals. In
other words, that there are no sinless, ideal people, and that the evil deeds
of a person or community accumulate a debt to be paid by the descendents, the
children and grandchildren. This view has given a kind of moral, human meaning
to suffering, sickness, and death. Through these ills, a person assumes on
himself the shared guilt, a past or present shared sin. On the other hand, a
person thereby atones for future sins and guilt, his own and those of his
children and grandchildren.
Together with this, most
religions seek the causes for a person’s sickness and suffering in his
individual life, his sins and evil thoughts, his words, and deeds. Religion
judges that least tolerable of all are the vices of selfishness: avarice,
pride, love of power, envy, and hatred of our fellows. Thus the sickness of the
body and soul is a punishment that the higher force and the community inflict
on the person who has dared to place himself above them and has neglected the
law of the connection of all living beings with, their dependency on the
Absolute and on one another.
Confession and repentance
are the chance that these neglected forces provide for restoring the balance
that egoism has impaired. Forgiveness, granted by God or by the victims of
selfishness to the guilty one in return for his sincere confession and
repentance, operates a miracle: it breaks the circle of sin and punishment and
brings peace to the person suffering spiritual torments, which can often be
more terrible and cruel than physical ones. A wise Confucian saying expresses
the high significance of this spiritual appeasement: “If you find the right way
in the morning, you can die in the evening.”
That is why the main object
of care and protection in the holy books of religions is the weak, poor,
unhappy, suffering human being; what is more, this is precisely the kind of
person to whom superior value is ascribed in the divine perspective; God can
show and practice his all-powerful, benevolent nature to the highest degree
with regard to this despised and rejected creature (that is probably why Marx
characterized religion as “the sigh of the depressed creature”).
Salvation after death, one
of the central categories in religion (M. Weber, B. Wilson), is also a gift and
reward granted to this poor, unhappy, suffering person who reveres God and
honors the divine commands; only through salvation does earthly life obtain
value.
*
In
order for this mutual movement of spiritual and mental energy and gifts to
occur between Man and God, the ethereal space of mutual love must span between
them; this is a love greater than all earthly loves, greater than that toward
one’s children, toward the opposite sex, towards parents: just as God
sacrificed His Son for the retribution of human sins, so too was it demanded of
Abraham to sacrifice his son for the love of God (S. Kierkegaard.
“Abraham’s Sacrifice”).
From
God and through God this love is extended to our fellows and even to our
enemies: the idea that all creatures, human and natural, are connected in a
single chain, are mutually dependent in life, in pain, and in death, is one of
the leading ideas in Christianity, in Buddhism, and in Taoism.
In Christianity
this idea is expressed through the concept of “neighbor”, which includes all
people, even our enemies; the sincere believer feels love and compassion for
all: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I have become sounding brass or a clinging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift
of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have
all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to
be burned but have not love, it profits
me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not
parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 Does not behave rudely, does not seek its
own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 Does not rejoice in iniquity, but
rejoices in the truth; 7 Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are
prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether
there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” / I Corinth., 13/
In one of the Hindu
religious traditions, Jainism, we are reminded: “He whom you would strike is no
other than yourself; he with whom you would quarrel is no other than yourself;
he whom you will torment is no other than yourself; he whom you try to enslave
is no other than yourself; he whom you would slay is likewise yourself.”
The superior reality, or
God, sets the beginning and sanctifies the value of each element of this
interconnected chain. The Koran testifies to the words of Allah: “My mercy
encompasses everything”; that is why humility, modesty, forgiveness,
repentance, are among the values of the religious ethos.
*
Instead of setting the
example of abidance by this moral model, the ecclesiastical institution often
emphasizes rites and rituals, the dogmatic and canonical schema or the
community-identifying functions of religion: the church usually draws
institutional benefits from this specific reduction of the religious, whereby
it is externalized, extended on a massive scale, and thus made amenable to control
and management.
The emphasis on rites and
ritual, the reduction of religious behaviour to them,
signifies enclosure within the framework of this virtual reality of sorts; this
leaves us without an exit to reality, to our fellows, to human relationships.
The perception of religion
as collective phenomenon appears in the
religious sphere regulated legal texts of the democratic developing Balkan
countries. They intend to harmonize the national policy in this
delicate sphere with European legal standards. Understandably, the above legal texts – as far as the European Laws on Religion - does not refer to the religious motivation and to the moral
attitude of the doer – the most important side of the Early Christianity
spiritual universe.
*
Modern and post-modern
society has substituted social roles for individual virtues, and social
techniques of control, bureaucratic rationality, for value motivations (M.
Weber); legal regulation has come to predominate over interpersonal ties; and
even in these ties, alienation has grown; there is a clear tendency to
increasing standardization and routine in social life at the expense of
suppressed individuality, of creativity as elements that introduce turbulence
into the system (B. Wilson).
The extremes of these trends
of modern societies have provoked the desire for spontaneous human ties and
closeness, for a fuller emotional life, for more solid values on which to base
behavior and interpersonal relations, values such as trust, mutual closeness,
good will; the satisfaction of these needs has at times been sought in the
religious sphere (B. Wilson).
Quite a few philosophers, including religious philosophers and theologians, have pointed out that interpersonal ties, which have been neglected in bureaucratic and technological rationality, play a constitutive role for human society. For Plato, the form of state government corresponds to and even depends on the nature, passions and relationships among its citizens. Aristotle determines sociality as a mutual well-meaning and trust among people. Augustine regards friendship among people as a reflection and continuation of the divine harmony of the universe. For many of the prominent Arab philosophers love is a higher value than knowledge.
In modern times religious philosophy
accepts and continues this line of thought, which is quite often described as
romantic: F. Schleiermacher - every man is a
necessary stroke in the landscape of the universe; M. Buber
- the most essential relationships in society are not the political and
economic, but rather inter-personal ones: of trust, friendship and love; J. Maritain - the moral sphere is the key characteristic of
the social; P. Tillich - the courage to create and
live with others (“to be part”) can bring power even to the culture-killed God.
F.M. Dostoyevski maintained that inter-human
solidarity stems from the metaphysical suffering and loneliness of people
abandoned by God, from the universal “fragility” of human nature typical of all
people /J.Comenius/.
*
When religion functions as
an emblem of separate communities, such as the nation, the ethnic group, an
empire, a civilization, the concept of “neighbor” is usually limited within the
boundaries of these small or large communities; the so-called latent functions
of religion come into action here (B. Wilson), which turn religion into a tool
of community identity and self-affirmation.
Actually, every action of
the group or individual, carried out in the name of the faith, but with means
that contradict the pathos and ethos of the holy books, tends to deeply erode
the spirit and public image of religion. In fact such an action, viewed from a
perspective internal to religion, cannot be considered religiously motivated at
all.
In
such situations religion is usually reduced to “belonging”, to a vivid emblem
that signifies the community in its opposition to ethnic, linguistic,
psychological otherness, at the expense of “believing”, of the faith and its
corresponding moral behavior (G. Davie). Thus the religious universality is
subordinated to partial group values, instead of transcending and enhancing
these values.
Processes and trends in
Eastern Orthodoxy in the Balkans in our times are directly connected with the
difficult and painful “opening” of this region to global changes, to the
“West”, and to “Europe”. In this complex process, marked at times by dramatic
shocks for values, by anomie, etc., Eastern Orthodoxy has become a spiritual
and institutional haven and channel for valuation and protection of the local
identity, of the local ethnos and state, and of the regional civilization and
cultural zone. The power and specifics of these trends have varied in the separate
Balkan countries: in some of them the Orthodox Church has acted in
collaboration with the political elite (Serbia), in others it has been critical
of the pro-European values of that elite (Greece), in others still it has
responded to and reflected the party and political division in society
(Bulgaria).
The causes for reanimation
of the “community emblem” role of Eastern Orthodoxy in the last two decades are
the following:
The processes of
globalization and social transformation which had to be carried out here in a
comparatively brief period of time led to many unfavorable results for the mass
of the local populations, such as impoverishment and unemployment; most
important, these processes imposed changes in the values system with regard to
relationships between individual and society, freedom and security, ideology
and pragmatism, personal consumption and gain, etc. These changes, which in the
Western mentality and culture have been promoted by Protestantism, in most
Balkan countries had to be achieved in short periods of time and without the
helpful mediation of a powerful value-defining ideology that would have made
them seem familiar and organic for the regional cultures. Without such
mediation the new democratic values were more or less perceived as something
imported, as a Western phenomenon imposed from the outside, at times even by
force.
Due to the fact that the
political elites of some of the Eastern Orthodox countries (with the exception
of Serbia), gradually accepted a pro-Western and pro-European orientation, the
Eastern Orthodox Churches remained the only institutional subject serving as a
medium for the fears and discontents produced by social changes. The
West-centered mythology found an opposition in East-centered mythology,
incubated in Eastern Orthodoxy as an institution and doctrine.
This new and strong social
role that the difficulties of global changes have assigned to the Orthodox
Churches would eventually wither in the course of a democratic pro-European
evolution of Balkan societies. Even the powerful Polish Catholic Church passed
through a period of hesitation with regard to the European orientation of
Poland, anticipating the narrowing of the social niche and weakening of the
social status of the Church in a democratic society.
*
7.
Types of relationships between state and Church in the European countries. Is
there a European identity/standard in
this sphere?
It is generally considered that, in the developed Western democracies, there are three basic models of Church-state relationships, characteristic of the epoch of secularisation: 1) the model of a state Church expressing a predominant religion (Finland, Greece, Great Britain); 2) the model of divided existence and co-operation, where the Church is separated from the state but is part of society (Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain); 3) the strict separation of church from state (France – the only European country with a categorical separation between Church and state)[1] .
Another proof of the secular
nature of European statehood is the absence of any reference to
confession-based religious theses and ideas in the preambles to the
constitutions of the European countries. Such references exist in the preambles
to the Greek and Irish constitutions. Whereas the French principle of laicité
accepts that the state must be completely neutral with regard to all religious
matters, the German tradition allows the so-called Invocatio
Dei; this difference is reflected in the contrary positions of these two
countries on this issue in connection with the European Constitution. [2]
The secular principle of
separation between Church and state is evident in the new constitutions of the
countries of Central and Eastern Europe: in some of their preambles there is
reference to God (Poland, the Ukraine); others refer to their religious
traditions (Czech Republic, Slovakia); still others make no such reference or
simply have no preambles to the constitution (Romania, Latvia, Albania,
Armenia, Azerbaijan). In the most frequent case there is no reference to God
(Belarus, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Russia, Slovenia,
Serbia and Montenegro).[3]
The basic legal acts and
documents that establish the principles of state-Church relations in developed
democracies are the following: 1/Universal Declaration of
Human Rights /1948/, art.18; 2/International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights of the United Nations /1976/, art.18; 3/ European
Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms /1953/, art.9: “1. Everyone has
the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes
freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in
community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or
belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.”
In assuming the freedom of religion to be a core principle of European identity with regard to state-Church relationships, the international documents in this sphere affirm the rights of separate countries to take into account in their legislature their national and cultural specificity (Art. 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU; Amsterdam treaty Declaration N11 on the status of Churches and non-confessional organisations).[4]
Examining the various emphases and even the philosophy
of this legislature in Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, L.Bloß writes that it: “appears to draw a highly
differentiated picture of the European Union as a whole being divided into
several major legal approaches in this arena.”[5]
But these European models of state-Church relations are not static. There is a
trend towards reduction of the relative weight of state Churches and towards
granting greater rights to other confessions; in recent years this tendency has
become evident in Sweden and Finland, in Italy, Spain, and Portugal.
The same author points out several basic stresses in
European legislature with regard to the freedom of religion: freedom of
worship, individually and collectively; a certain degree of church autonomy;
financial relief in the form of direct support and/or tax relieves;
participation and/or representation in mass media and school systems; support
on an equal basis in the cultural and social realm. [6]
*
8. The state and Church relations in Spain[7]
regarding some similarities with the
situation in the studied countries
Except for brief intervals, Spain was defined as a
confessional Catholic country between 1873 and 1931, and this principle was
brought to an extreme during the Franco regime. It was only by the law on
religious freedom, adopted in 1967, that other religious communities received
rights. The constitution of 1978 instituted a new type of relationship between
state and Church in abolishing the principle that Catholicism is the state
religion.
Without affirming the principle of strict separation
between state and Church, the principle of religious freedom and secularism are
predominant in the legal regulation of state-Church relationships, together
with the principle of non-discrimination.
In 1980 the General Act of Religious Freedom was
adopted in Spain; it binds religious freedom with considerations of public
order, health and morality. Through this act legal tools are created for
providing cooperation between the state and other religious communities. The
first of them is a register on religious communities /the Religious Entities Register Book/, kept by the General Directorate
of Religious Affairs at the Ministry of Justice/, which grants legal status to
religious confessions. Registration is one of the requirements that guarantee
the right of a religious confession to conclude a contract with the state.
The second tool is the Committee on Freedom of
Worship, created by the Ministry of Justice, in which government officials and
representatives of the various religious communities take part, the emphasis being on
those who are influential and authoritative in Spain. If a given religious
confession meets the first two conditions, it has the right to conclude a
contract with the state.
According to L. Bloß
the government gives privileges on the basis of historical principles, not on a
quantitative basis; that is why such contracts have been concluded with the
Muslim and Jewish communities, but not with Jehovah’s Witnesses, though this
confession has a larger following. Spain continues to be a predominantly
Catholic country. An indication of this is that religious communities such as
Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Scientology, etc., have been refused
registration for more than 10 years.
During my visit to Spain in September 2004 in
connection with this project I noticed an expanding scope of admission to legal
status of confessions.
Indeed, the public space in that country was dominated
by the cultural-religious presence of the Catholic Church, which seemed to be
embodied most imposingly in Madrid in the magnificent Catedrala
de la Almudena, an exceptional architectural
achievement with a grandiose interior and a rich and deep symbolism of the
sculptures of saints in front of the entrance to the building. The influence of
the Church as an institution in Spain was reflected in the throngs of
worshippers in the churches and the numerous religious bookstores full of an
enormous quantity of religious publications, newspapers of individual churches,
books on religious doctrine, research works, etc.
The vicissitudes in Spanish history and its cultural
vitality were obvious in the variety of confessions embodied in the houses of
worship in Toledo, religions that had met, fought, and finally come to mutual
reconciliation: Islam, Catholicism, Judaism… Lion Feuchtwanger
wrote a wonderful book, “Spanish Ballad”, about this city and its religions,
about how, together with all-powerful time, love is the other great force that
reconciles and pacifies religious contradictions and struggles.… The motley
crowds of tourists come from all over the world, transformed the monuments of
these fateful age-long struggles into beautiful photographs, into an exciting
summer adventure, a colorful souvenir, to be bought for friends or as a remembrance…
At the same time, in its issue of September 16, the
daily El Pais,
came out with an entire page devoted to la
Gran Inauguracion, the
official opening of the new building of the Spanish Church of Scientology, a
special ceremony that was to take place on September 18. Led by professional
interest, I attended this ceremony, which combined dancing and music, a strong
presence of the media, attractive (the actor Tom Cruse) and authoritative
(representatives of institutions) speakers. Such means of impact traditional
religions find hard to adopt. As for the post-modern individual, he seems
rather inclined to accept a religious “cocktail”, spiritual “bricolage”, as long as it works for him in relieving his
stress and mental torments.
It is hard to strike a balance between fidelity to
tradition, to the foundations of traditional religion on the one hand and
openness to dialogue and support for contemporary human mentality on the other.
But achieving this balance seems to be the source of vitality of these new
religious movements. Religious philosophers and theologians are thinking hard
on these questions /the interesting book I bought “Teologia
para todos” refers to
them/, wavering between hope and despair: in one of the bookstores of Madrid I
saw a book by a contemporary theologian, entitled “Adios Cristiendad”…
* * *
II. Cultural-historical background of the problem
The analyzed in this study countries experienced
complicated post-communist transformations from the beginning of the last
decade of the past century; some of them – Serbia and Macedonia – even blood
ethnic-religious conflicts. After the end of this period the studied countries
should solved some very important and complicated problems in the religious
sphere: democratization of the legal regulation and acceptance of the
Western-European standards; creation of the social-political atmosphere of
tolerance, liberties, pluralism in the religious sphere; adaptation to the
changes and trends, imposed by the globalization .
The democratization of state
and Church relations in the contemporary Balkan countries can not be analyzed
and understood without referring to the historical background of the processes
and especially to the interaction between the religion and the historical
myths, related to the national identities. In one of these countries,
Serbia, the Eastern Orthodox Church has been a powerful generator of and
channel for the intensification of the national identity, in collaboration with
the political elite. In another country, Bulgaria, the Eastern Orthodox Church
has been occupied with politically produced internal ecclesiastic problems and
divisions and has remained aside from these trends and roles.
*
1.Problems of the
“nationalization” of the myth of God’s elect in Serbia and Bulgaria
The conversion to
Christianity of the young states of Serbia and Bulgaria at the end of the
ninetieth century (regardless of its high value as a civilising
factor) created the possibility for the emergence and many centuries of
circulation of the two mutually connected myths or rather of the integral myth,
of the nation elected by God and personified in the God-elected state leader.
Moreover, the adoption of Christianity from the Byzantine Church in particular
determined another interesting feature in the formation and active working of
this myth in the histories of Serbia and Bulgaria.
Byzantium built its imperial ideology and
political religion on the myth of divine election. The myth represents a
synthesis, a complex product of the beliefs and cultural traditions of the
peoples that made up the Empire: the solar cult of the Romans with the idea of
the divine sun-emperor, the belief that a holy empire is destined to establish
its power across the whole world, the haughty attitude of enlightened Greece
towards the rest of the world, considered to be “barbaric”, the view that the
empire is the materialization of God’s Kingdom on earth, which echoes the early
Christian notion of the Divine King.
These views took shape and
acquired official status in the time of Justinian,
remaining traditional and unchanging until the fall of the empire. The newly
converted Slavic states became part of the Byzantine oikumenos,
or the “Byzantine Commonwealth” as D. Obolensky
called it; these states were treated by analogy with the children of the
powerful pater familias
[8].
Together with military
rivalry over territories, borderlines, and resources, sharp competition grew
for appropriating this myth. This rivalry over the myth became part of the
prolonged and painful struggle for state independence, for autonomous
institutions, for national spirituality. The struggle acquired particularly
dramatic proportions for the Bulgarian state at that time, it being the
geographically closest, and militarily and culturally most powerful, rival of
the Byzantine Empire.
The idea of Divine election
of the head of state and of God’s elect nation can be found in the official and
apocryphal literature of both countries. The presence of this idea marks the
growth of state and national self-awareness, of finding a place of one’s own,
finding one’s identity in the framework of the universal Christian tradition.
The idea of imperial status and the recurrent revival of this idea in the
states of the Byzantine commonwealth was not only a sign of military and
economic rivalry, but also of the striving of the separate states to acquire,
by force or through diplomacy, the role of political and religious center within
the community of states. This was also a striving to obtain state-political and
spiritual status of a causa sui.
*
2. Specific national
features of the myth of the national mission. Serbia.
One of
the causes for the difference in how the breakup of the totalitarian systems
took place in Bulgaria as compared with Serbia lies in the specific differences
between the two countries in the meaning and preservation of what is “theirs”
in terms of territory, ethnic identity, resources, mythology. While for Bulgaria,
“one’s own” proved vigorous only when united with something “alien” - Europe
and/or Russia, in Serbia (and in other Balkan countries) people turned to the
historical mythological foundation of their “own” as something superior to the
“alien”, whether neighbouring or distant.
I will point out two of the
main causes for this distinction: 1/ the national consciousness had preserved
over the centuries the force of the myth of uniqueness and national superiority
over the “others”, and 2/ this construction has been revived and imbued with
aggressive energies for preserving the nation and purging it of the alien (in
terms of language, religion, ethnos, territory), all of this being promoted by
the political elite and through propaganda.
Among the myths that have
maintained the feeling of uniqueness and superiority over others, Serbian
researchers point out the cult of Saint Sava and the Kosovo myth. The sacralisation of
the dynasty of Stefan Nemanja (1113-1199), including
his son Sava, created in the popular consciousness
the foundation of the idea of historical
continuity and ethnic kinship. The life of St. Sava
is connected with the consolidation and development of Orthodoxy, with the autocephalic status acquired by the Serbian Orthodox
Church, with devoted service to the good of the people; all this was strongly mythologised by religious authors and by popular tradition.
St. Sava’s
deeds and martyrdom were taken to be a sign and a result of divine election and
were likened to the figure of Christ. In connection with this mythologisation, the idea of the indelible bond between the
Serbian nation and Orthodoxy, between ethnos and religion, which was one of the
ideological pretexts and criteria for ethnic “cleansing” during the war in
former Yugoslavia.
As Orthodox Christianity was
the religion shared by several Balkan peoples, this confession could become
distinctive for the Serbian nation only when linked to the personality of St. Sava, whereby it acquired an ethnic aspect for this
specific nation. Some authors call this
saint the spiritual-ecclesiastic father of Serbia, while the contemporary
Serbian author Ivan Kolaric calls the St. Sava myth ‘pivotal for the Serbian ethnos and ethos.
The ideas of St. Sava concerning the Christian Church as “God’s State”,
which unites the ethnos and is a protector of the Serbian national principle
also serves to sacralise and strengthen the myth of
God’s elect as a function and a consequence of the merging of the ethnic
principle with Orthodoxy. The mythologised figure of
St. Sava became a national Jesus Christ[9],
and by nationalising Orthodoxy, this faith, common to
many nations, became part of “one’s own” for Serbs.
While
such a synthesis was something usual in the Middle Ages, its revival in the
last years of the twentieth century was a result of the purposeful efforts of
politicians and ecclesiastics. Many contemporary Serbian researchers point out
the efforts of religious-ecclesiastic figures for reviving and modernising the myth of the uniqueness of Savian Orthodoxy and of the divine election of the Serbian
ethnic community, loyal to the saint.
R. Radic discusses the attempts of opposing the European man
to the Savian god-man, and the belief that the
Serbian people is a nation of Christ with a world mission connected with the
spirit and eternity [10].
D. Djordjevic points out that the revival of
nationalism during the 1980s in Serbia was a factor for the growing importance
of the Serbian Orthodox Church and for the active use of the national-religious
synthesis as a feature of divine election, superiority, and intolerance for
aliens [11].
When
the criterion of “Orthodoxy” is used to define the ethnic origin, not only the
non-Orthodox, but even non-religious individuals become foreigners, are
excluded from the Serbian ethnic. On the other hand, the revival and
consolidation of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its congregation turns out to
be a quasi-religious process, for religion in this case proves to be mostly a
form of preservation of the ethnos, a recalling of its mission. This process is
equally dangerous for the Church, for religion, and for the ethnic community.
It makes these elements mutually dependent and interchangeable, impoverishing
their separate cultural contents and properties.
*
3. National particularities
of the mythology of mission. The Bulgarian case.
Having
reached its peak of effective utilisation of the myth
of God’s elect and of the unique mission during the Golden Age of King Simeon,
Bulgaria gradually left the historical stage of Balkan missionary mythologies.
Historians and philosophers of Bulgarian history have discussed the variety of
causes for this abandonment: the strong influence of Byzantine culture, the
division between people and state leaders with regard to internal and external
goals, the dangerous cross-roads location of the country, etc.
The
attempts in modern times, particularly between the First and Second World Wars,
to seek new dimensions for a unique and important national mission did not
prove successful and were not widely accepted in cultural and political
circles, nor in Bulgarian mass consciousness; in other words, they failed to
revive and modernize the energy of the medieval mythological archetype.
The
myth broke down into competing ideas about the specifics of Bulgarian identity[12]:
1/ the idea of Slavocentric identity involving the
idea of union of Slavic countries with Russia; 2/ the Eurocentric
identity proclaiming the adherence to European values; 3/ the Bulgarocentric one based on the idea of the unique
Bulgarian ethnos, the unique religious-pagan synthesis, the unique features of
the Bulgarian national character, etc.
The
force, energy, and scale of the mythological idea of God’s elect people and its
unique mission also depend on the environment, on the “enemy” that the idea
confronts. In the history of independent national Balkan countries /in the ninteenth and in the twentieth centuries/, where periods of
good neighbourly relations and rivalry have followed
one after the other, the megamyth of God’s elect is
broken up into parts. It breaks down to the myths of the “bad other” in the
Balkans as opposed to “us, the good ones”; the myth of Macedonia, which has
different meanings for Bulgarians and Serbs; the myth of the true faith, of
“authentic” Orthodoxy; the myth of the nation that created the Slavonic
language, etc.
In our times this resource
is entirely under the control and responsibility of the political elite and
media. Proof of this is the variety of approaches and usage of each of the
above-mentioned myths under the various political regimes in the different
Balkan countries. During the totalitarian period most of these myths lost
official support, but showed through sharply, and they have obviously not lost
their vitality and unifying potential, unfortunately used in recent years at
the service of hatred.
The gradual waning and
reduction of the myth of the unique and important national mission that is
evident in the modern history of Bulgaria is one of the essential differences
in the life of this myth here as compared with Serbia. Of course we are not
discussing the independent mystical aspect of the myth, but its role as a
symbol and symptom of the level of national self-awareness and self-confidence.
As M. Lalkov writes, commenting on the strong
presence of this myth in the history of Balkan peoples: ‘Only the peoples who
are absolutely sure of themselves can do without absolute ancestries.”[13]
*
4. The withering of the
national mission myth in Bulgaria. For better or for worse?
At first glance the
processes of change that began in 1989 in Bulgaria differ completely from those
in Serbia with regard to the historical mythology involved, especially with
regard to the myth of national superiority and “God’s elect”. In the modern and
recent history of Bulgaria this myth has gradually lost its hold on the
national consciousness, for the question of the civilizational
choice of Bulgaria has been set in terms of “accession” - whether it be to the
West, to Russia, or to the Soviet Union.
Among the basic causes for
this feature, I would point out the following:
First,
there is a gap of five centuries separating the time when that myth was active,
in the first centuries of the Bulgarian state, especially after conversion to
Christianity in the nintieth century, from the modern
history of Bulgaria. While in this same period of “timelessness” for Bulgaria,
in Serbia the Kosovo myth grew in cultural force; by
this myth the fall under the Turkish yoke (after the Battle of Kosovo) was transfigured as a heroic feat of martyrdom in
Serbian history. Combined with the myth of unique Savian
Orthodoxy, it created a spiritual heritage, a continuity of Serbian history in
the national consciousness.
Although
it was a factor for cultural and national preservation in Bulgaria as well,
Orthodoxy was not connected with the founding myth of nationality. Moreover,
during the Turkish domination the religion tended to acquire an overtone of
Greek domination, becoming associated with Greek interests promoted by the Patriarchate of Constantinople[14].
This
was one of the causes why the attempts in modern times to unite the national
idea with Orthodoxy were not particularly active or successful. National
mythology about the values and missionary projects of the nation were fueled
mostly by the idea of joining “imported” large-scale mythologies such as
European values (science, economic growth, pragmatism); or the Slavic idea,
usually embodied by Russia and connected with values such as warm human
relations, spirituality, etc.
In the
first half of the twentieth century Europeanism was less popular than the Slavophile idea. At the same time, even the proponents of
the Slavic idea (writers, historians) defended the trend for Bulgarian culture
to join universal and the advanced culture, and resisted cultural isolationism.
The idea of a unique Bulgarian messianism, upheld by
a few thinkers, called for a neo-pagan renaissance, and was inspired by
anti-Slavic and anti-European emotions; it usually involved authoritarian and
totalitarian trends [15].
The period
of totalitarianism (from 1944 to 1989) put an end to these orientations,
involving Bulgarian national destiny in a large-scale social project in
which mythology and social pragmatics
were tightly interwoven. Bulgaria was now a submissive member of the Soviet
“commonwealth”, the Socialist bloc. The ”Golden Age” of King Simeon, the epic
rivalry with the Byzantines, the liberation struggles were left behind in
history, or rather had become a prehistory, for the triumph of Communism in
Bulgaria was considered the crowning achievement of national development, as well as a
completely new social start.
In
Serbia the resilience of the Kosovo myth in its
quality of “eternal ethics, unchanging with time”[16]
served both the Yugoslav unity and proletarian values. Of course, when
comparing the mission myth in Bulgaria and Serbia, I am not referring to some
advantage on one side or another in this comparison, but simply point out the
differences. In Bulgaria the communist missionary mythology engulfed and
effaced the already weak missionary strand in the national mythology.
Of
course the real social role of the communist mission myth cannot be given a
simple assessment. It is ambivalent and its negative sides have been the object
of a great quantity of publications. One of its advantages over the national
mission mythologies of the Balkans was that it served as a source of
scientific-technical modernisation of Balkan
societies. Moreover, Arnold Toynbee considered that
in the twentieth century the same processes of modernisation
had taken place both in the West and in the East, but were carried out in
different political and ideological forms.
* * *
*
1.Legal Issues of State-Church Relationships
in Serbia and Montenegro. Religion and Politics
1.1. The legal void and the way towards the law
With the formation of socialist Yugoslavia after WWII
began the separation between Church and State in this country. The
Constitutions of 1946, 1963, and 1974 contained articles that placed the Church
outside the sphere of the state. The position of religious communities was
regulated by a law adopted in 1953, and after the constitutional reform of
1974, the member states of the Federation adopted separate laws on religious
communities. Such a law was passed in Serbia in 1977; it was invalidated in
1993.
After the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia and the
creation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a Constitution was voted (April
27, 1992), art. 18 of which stipulates that the Church is separate from the
state and Churches are free and equal in rights; art. 20 asserts that citizens
are free and equal regardless of race, gender, language, faith, political or
other differences, education, social origin; art. 43 affirms the freedom of
religious confessions[17].
In the present Constitution of Serbia, adopted
September 28, 1990, art. 41 asserts the freedom of religious confessions;
Churches and religious communities are separate from the state and are free in
the performance of their religious functions; they have the right to create
confessional schools and charity organizations. The state has no financial
commitments to the Churches and will not return them their nationalized
property. By the latest amendments to the Constitution, made early in 2003, the
territorial and administrative decentralization of the state and the character
of the state community as a union of the two sovereign states, Serbia and
Montenegro, are asserted. Civil liberties and the protection of human rights,
including religious rights and liberties[18],
are not treated in this constitution.
“The Charter of Human and Minority Rights and Civil
Liberties”[19], passed
several months after the Constitution, stipulates in art. 26 that each person
has freedom of thought, conscience, faith and religious confession; art.27,
that religious communities are equal in rights and separate from the state and
have full autonomy to build their own organizations, to perform their religious
functions and rites, to create confessional schools and charity organization.
Art. 51 states that the expression of and instigation to national, racial,
religious or any other inequality are forbidden and punishable, as are hatred
and intolerance based thereon, while art. 30 draws attention to the
responsibility of the media in this connection.
Issues of religious communities are also addressed in
the Government Decree of the Republic of Serbia pertaining to the organization
of alternative religious education in the primary and secondary schools; by
this decree, religion was introduced in 2001 as an optional subject in schools.
The decree was prepared by a committee organized by the Ministry of Religions
and the Ministry of Education and Sports; this committee included
representatives of the recognized Churches and religious communities. Civic
education was the alternative school subject offered as an option. After the
Law on Primary education was amended in 2002, both these subjects became
obligatory. Art. 20 of the Law stipulates that the school curriculum on
religious education will be determined jointly with the Ministry of Education
and the Ministry of Religions on the basis of proposals coming from the
traditional Churches and religious communities in conformity with the law. [20]
After the Law on Religious Communities was abolished in 1993, a legal void set in within the sphere of religion. In the period that commenced, religious communities, especially the new religious movements, were registered according to the Law on Civic Associations, dating from 1990. Legal status was recognized for all the religious organizations registered by 1993.
*
1.2. The Draft Law of Religious Freedom /2002/
After the authoritarian regime of Slobodan
Milosevic fell in 2000, the Ministry of Religious
Affairs was created; the latter was renamed Secretariat on Religious Affairs at
the time of the administrative reforms of 2002. This Secretariat initiated a
Draft Law of Religious Freedom[21].
The objective of the law was to harmonize the national policy in this delicate
sphere with European legal standards.
In the Preamble to the law it is indicated that the
Serbian Orthodox Church has played a major historical role in preserving and
developing the national identity and that the social and cultural importance is
acknowledged of the Muslim community, the Roman Catholic Church, the Jewish
community, the Evangelical Christian Church, the Reformed Christian Church, as
well as the other churches and confessional communities. These religious
communities were recognized by law in the late 1920s and early 1930s, which has
become the basis for their being specially mentioned in the recent law. The situation
of the other Churches and religious communities can be regulated through their
applying for registration. In order for a religious community to be registered,
a minimum of 10 members is required.
Art. 1 affirms
the liberty of thought, conscience and belief; art. 2 states there is no state
religion; art. 4 asserts that religious communities are equal and free in
maintaining their religious identity. Art. 5 defines religious communities as
legal persons founded for performing religious activities. They obtain their
legal status after being registered by a proper organ, while the Churches and
communities listed in the Preamble already have legal status and are inscribed
in the Register following a simplified procedure.
According to
art. 8 of the draft law, when applying for registration, the religious
communities provide information on their name, means of financial support, the
person representing them, their status and the basis of their religious
doctrine, rites and goals. A religious community may be refused registration if
its goals, doctrine, rites or activities are not constitutional, are in
contradiction with the social order, or represent a risk to the rights and
liberties of others, in particular to life, physical and mental health, the rights
of children and the right to protection of the family and property /art. 9/. In
these cases the authorities go by the standards of the European Court on Human
Rights and by the relevant practice in one or more states of the European
community.
Art. 13 of the
law affirms the role of the State for promoting tolerance between religious
communities, while art. 14 specifies that the state-run primary and secondary
schools provide for the right to religious education of the religious
communities listed in the Preamble of this law. Art. 18 also affirms that the
State is committed to invalidating the legal consequences of the
nationalization of the property of religious communities and can provide
material assistance to religious communities. Art. 23 treats of the conditions
under which the freedom of religion and conscience may be restricted; these
conditions are defined by law and concern the need to protect the security,
social order, health, morals, or the rights and liberties of others.
*
1.3.Critique and discussion of the Draft Law of
Religious Freedom
According to Dr. M. Vukomanovich,
the legal aspect of the church-state relations “has not gained enough attention
from experts” and there are “many
dilemmas and a significant dose of confusion both in the public and in the
state institutions”[22].
According to this author, the legal identity of the state that the law refers
to is not clear: “Who are the partners in
this relationship? Which state /bearing
in mind the as yet unresolved issue of Serbian-Montenegrin relations/ will
establish its legal relationship with religious communities?”[23]
Moreover, this
eminent Serbian sociologist of religion raises the important issue of the legal
consistency and continuity in legislation on these issues: “Before any appropriate
law had been passed in Parliament, the Serbian Government’s Decree on Religious
Education defined in its article 1, that the traditional churches and religious
communities are: Serbian Orthodox Church, Islamic Community, Roman Catholic
Church, Slovak Evangelical Church, Jewish Community, Evangelical Christian
Church and Reformed Christian Church”.[24] A particularly important question is what
the criterion should be for dividing communities into two categories, treated
differently by the law with regard to registration and religious education: “Is
that the constitutional model of the so-called ‘recognized religious
communities’? What were the criteria of
this selection? Are other religious
communities still equal before the law?”[25]
The author
points out particularly important questions that have not been addressed in the
draft law: “How can the churches participate in the protection of the
national, religious, ethnic rights of other religious and confessional
groups?”[26] and
“How to put this principle in practice in actual situations.”[27]
According to G. Bashich, the
reason why the legal norm emphasizes the church institution rather than the
individual believer, and why these particular religious communities enjoy a
privileged status, lies in a nostalgic mentality that is inclined to a
restoration of the past situation. In this perspective, the correct relations
that existed between state and Churches in the first half of the 20th
cent., cut short by the Communist regime, should be restored. [28]
Among circles of the Serbian Orthodox Church,
criticism of the draft law is also voiced: there have been comments that it degrades the status of the Church to
one of several traditional religious communities, thereby failing to distinguish
the unique historical role of this Church in preserving the Serbian nation and
state; the law is said not to assume a clear commitment to restoring
nationalized property and providing financial support by the state for
religious communities; it has also been said that there is no need for a law on
religious freedom at all, but that the state should make separate agreements
with each religious community.[29]
The draft law was discussed at a session of parliament
in December 2002; the debate showed there was in fact insufficient support for the
projected law. In the mean time, the Secretariat on Religious Affairs has been
abolished, whose Secretary, B. Shijakovich, was a
member of the committee preparing the draft law. The functions of the
Secretariat were assumed by the Ministry of Human Rights and National
Minorities together with the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of
Serbia.
The Association for Religious and National Freedoms of
Serbia and Montenegro came out with an alternative draft law, which has found
support among the religious communities and the government.[30]
The views of this association are that a
person is inherently free and there is no need for a law regulating this
natural right. The idea is for religious communities in Serbia to sign a
contract with the state regarding their legal status. For decades, supporters
of this idea claim, the traditional religious communities in Serbia have been
formally equal, but their actual situation has depended on the political regime
and its ideological bias.
The key issue
is not whether religion is a person’s private affair, but whether a religious
person is restricted in his/her rights when belonging to a minority religious
community. That is why a concrete contract between each community and the state
is necessary /the solution of the issue in Croatia has been similar, although
not without its shortcomings[31]/
- this idea has been formulated as a decision of the conference and has been
supported by most religious communities[32].
For several years now, a reform of the constitution
has been expected in Serbia, which will define the political, social,
administrative and territorial order. It will probably also regulate the
situation of Churches and religious communities. According to G. Bashich, the basic question in the philosophy of this
problem is whether the authors of the constitution will assume as central to
their legal perspective the Church as institution or the freedom of the
individual believer.
*
1.4.
The Draft Law on Freedom of Belief, Churches, Religious Communities and
Religious Associations /2004/[33]
On July 6, 2004 the Ministry for Religious
Affairs of the Republic of Serbia presented to the public a new “ Law on
Freedom of Belief, Churches, Religious Communities and Religious Associations”.
The draft law met with a mixed response: it was approved of by the so-called
traditional communities, but was sharply criticized by the small religious
communities, by the NGOs, by international experts.
In her interesting study A. Ilic expressed the opinion of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights that the law marks a regress
compared with the draft law of 2002, and thus reflects certain political
changes that have taken place as a result of the parliamentary elections of
December 2003. The elections were won by the nationalistic Serbian Radical
Party, which considers Orthodoxy to be an important factor for Serbian
identity.[34]
Which are the most debated points and
theses?
In the 2004 draft law, unlike that of
2002, there is no reference at the beginning to the basic documents presenting
the European standards of state-Church relationships in democratic societies.
The general provisions of the draft law begin by affirming the freedom of
confession, both for communities and for citizens. It is stipulated that the
citizen can neither be discriminated, nor privileged on the basis of his/her
religious affiliation /art. 1/
Article 2 defines the importance of
Churches, religious communities and religious associations for human and civil liberties,
for the cultural identity of the people and of the ethnic communities, for the
democratization and harmonization of social relationships in Serbia; art. 3
guarantees the complete autonomy of the Churches, the religious communities and
the religious associations with regard to matters of worship and religion and
in their organizational structure.
Article 4 is the focus of criticisms and
discussions. It gives a legally privileged status to several churches and
religious communities which in the preamble to the 2002 draft law are also
indicated as being traditional or historical – diversity of positions on that
problem is available in the European state-Church related discussions [35]: the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Islamic Community, the Roman
Catholic Church, the Jewish Community, the Evangelical Christian Churches of
the Augsburg Confession, and the Reformed Christian Church. In the draft law of 2004 the reference to such a
privileged status is based on the legal continuity
with the legislature of the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. According to B. Bjelajac, the small religious communities have criticized
this article of the law because it tolerated the mono-ethnic Churches and
religious communities. [36]
Mirko Djordjevic told Forum18: "The state
wants armed nationalism of the 1990s in Serbia to be no more, but
nationalism itself survived and gains new life from religious motifs, or rather
from fake religious motifs. We need a politics in this country that will make a
clear break with the past and start looking forward to the European
future."[37]
Although art. 5 of
the draft law guarantees equality of rights and liberties for all Churches and
religious communities, in view of the contents of art. 4 this clause sounds
more or less formal. Among the privileges of the so-called traditional Churches
is the right to introduce religious teaching in state schools financed by the
state.
According to art.
6, the state does not have the right to meddle in the internal organization of
activities of the religious communities, which, according to art. 7, have the
status of legal entities. According to art. 8, the various religious
communities do not have the right to mutually limit their rights and liberties.
In order for this provision to become a reality, democratic development and
culture is required in various social spheres, and the fact that such a culture
is still absent is demonstrated by the chronology of attacks against the
temples of the smaller religious communities: Pavel Domonji, from
the Helsinki Committee, observed to Forum 18
that "Small religious communities are often under attack. It is probably because they form trans-national
communities, where every believer is a
member, regardless of ethnic background."[38]
Article 17 of the section
“Social status of the church officers”, which guarantees legal immunity to this
category, has also provoked a strong critical response for it is expected that
mostly the Orthodox clergymen will benefit by this clause. That violates the principle of separation of
church and state, proclaimed under Article 41 of the Constitution of the
Republic of Serbia and Article 27 of the Human and Minority Rights and Civil
Freedoms Charter.
According to
Article 47 of the section “Financing”, the religious communities are
self-supporting through their own revenues, but there is also a statement,
expressive generally of the desirability of this principle, that the state
should financially assist the religious communities. As for the return of
confiscated property, much as in the 2002 draft law, here likewise no concrete
guarantees are provided, but it is merely pointed out that the question will be
regulated by a separate law.
The legal status
of religious associations which are not of the religious communities indicated
in art. 4, is regulated in section IX. According to art. 63, religious
associations that have been legally recognized are automatically entered in the
Register, whereby their status of legal entities is confirmed. The Register of
religious communities is kept by the Ministry of Religious Affairs.
Articles 64 and 65
guarantee the right of religious associations to free practice of their faith
in the way in which this is guaranteed for Churches and religious communities.
The section on
“New religious associations” lists the documents required for registration of
the new religious associations: name, address, status, basic principles of the
religious doctrine, etc., which were also present in the 2002 draft law, but
with one important exception. The earlier draft law required a minimal number
of 10 members for granting legal status of the associations, while the 2004
draft law requires 1000 members, a change that was also seriously criticized by
the smaller religious communities.
The Hare Krishna
representative has stated: "However, there are some proposals that
are not really good, for instance the proposed requirement for a minimum of
1,000 believers before a new religious association can be registered. We have
never been consulted about any issues in this country, and we have not even
been sent this draft bill, although we have been registered as a religious
community in Serbia since 1989." In
contrast to this attitude, "our sister communities in the
former Yugoslavia have received not only state recognition, but in Croatia they
will be given 500 square meters of space in the centre of Zagreb for humanitarian work; in Slovenia we have
an agreement with the state and have
received about 1,500 Euros (12,587 Norwegian
Kroner or 1,806 US Dollars) from the [Slovenian] state this year, and in
Macedonia, the state invites us whenever there is an occasion for various religious bodies to
meet together.”[39]
Article 69
stipulates that the term for making the decision regarding the registration is
60 days, and there is a 30-day term for making the needed additions to the
incomplete registration. There is a better solution, for in the previous draft
law the term was 90 days. According to art. 70 another legal entity cannot
register under the same name, while art. 72 defines the cases where the legal
entity status of the religious association is abolished: when that association
violates public order, when it acts against the family and morality, when it
instigates national or racial hostility.
*
1.5. Further evolution of the 2004 Draft
As a result of the
criticisms addressed by the small religious communities, the NGOs and the
international organizations, the government withdrew this draft law and in
September 2004 the Ministry of Religious Affairs proposed a new, third draft
law “On religious organizations”[40],
in which an attempt was made to respond positively toward the criticisms.
In this draft law the rights and liberties of
the various categories of religious communities are dealt with together,
synthetically, not separately; their equal standing is stressed. The category
of “religious organizations” implies the uniting traits of religious
communities, but their separation and distinction into types remain in this
draft law as well, even more clearly and categorically than in the previous two
variants. They are presented in Section Two, entitled “Religious
organizations”, which defines three types of religious organizations,
respectively three kinds of status.
According to art.
9, there are some “traditional Churches” /the “traditional
Church” status is accepted by the specialists as compatible with the European
legal standards and practice [41]/ with a long
history in the country and a considerable contribution to the development of
Christian culture; among these Churches are those indicated in art. 4 of the
previous draft law, but not excluding the Muslim and Jewish communities.
Article 10 gives special status to the Serbian
Orthodox Church as first among equals; this Church has the responsibility to
protect the rights of all religious organizations and the confessional
pluralism of Serbia. This special place given to the Serbian Orthodox Church in
a separate article and the description of the merits and social tasks of this
Church is probably a kind of response to the criticisms against the 2002 draft
law, stating that this law degraded the Church, placing it on an equal standing
with the other five religious communities.
Article 11 places
the Islamic and Judaic communities in the section “Historical religious
communities”, inasmuch as these two have a long historical presence and have
contributed to affirming the pluralist European model. Article 12 confirms the
privileged legal status of these two religious organizations, which are
inscribed automatically in the Register. It is confirmed that this status is
based on their traditional legal position in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
The legal status
of the new religious communities dating from the 19th and 20th
century is described in a separate section, where reference is likewise made to
past legislature, the laws of 1953 and 1973.
In this draft law
the idea is missing regarding the legal immunity of Church officers, but the
requirement of 1000 members for registration of a new religious organization is
repeated.
It is evident from
all that has been said that the criticisms of the draft law have not been taken
into account fully and categorically; instead, an attempt has been made to
pacify criticism by means of general statements without a high regulatory value.
*
1.6.Latest developments and versions of the 2004 Draft Law
The latest version of the
Draft Law, dating from July 2004, entitled Draft Law on the Legal Status of
Religious Communities, was offered for discussion to the confessional
organizations, to non-governmental national and international organizations,
and to the media. According to T. Brankovic,
counselor in the Ministry of Religious Affairs of the Republic of Serbia[42]
/interviewed during the International conference in Novi sad, Serbia/, this draft
law treated in a qualitatively new, democratic way the issues of freedom of
speech, of thought, and of worship. According to T. Brankovic’s
presentation at the International conference [43], a particularly
important achievement of this last version of the Draft Law was that it
recognized religious organizations as being a positive factor in the social and
cultural environment of a democratic society.
In his opinion the much criticized principle
of the Law that divides religious communities into three categories according
to various criteria, is actually not anti-democratic, for it treats all three
groups as equal. This fact has been admitted by Prof. Evans of the University
of Bristol, UK, in his expert opinion addressed to the Council of Europe on
March 5, 2005. [44]
Another point of concern in
the Draft Law of July 2004 was the large number of members – 1000 people –
necessary for registering a religious community. In the course of the current
discussions various ideas have been
suggested: for decreasing the number to 700, for abolishing all restrictions
for registration involving a minimal number of members
The trend to decreasing the restrictive or prohibitive clauses has been confirmed by the debated idea of giving the religious organizations the right to carry on activities regardless of whether they have been granted legal status and whether they are registered. According to T. Brankovic, the latest discussions and changes in the Draft Law are in the context of the future of Serbia as a European member.
The discussions and the work
on the above points completed, the Draft will take the way towards the
Parliament.
*
1.7.Conclusions
and Recommendations
Following the main directions of the
critics and recommendations by the specialists on the issue, [45] the
crucial points to be improved are:
With
regard to the requirement for a minimal membership of a religious organization
as a condition for acquiring legal status, to decrease the minimum down to what
is customary for most European countries, or to completely eliminate this
requirement.
In
the documents necessary for applying, the one concerning the fundamental
principles of the religious doctrine should be eliminated, inasmuch as the object
of assessment and the possible sanction should be the actual activity, not the
ideas of a given religious community.
The
term for obtaining an answer concerning an application for registration should
be decreased from 60 to 30 days, which is the term in most European countries.
The organ of registration should gradually shift from the state to the
judiciary.
The practice of revoking the right of
existence of a given religious community should be considered an exceptional,
extreme measure inasmuch as it falls under the definition of seeking collective
guilt. Interpreting the conditions under which the annulment is possible
depends on the democratic culture of a society, and so it is necessary to
formulate them more clearly. Violations of the law, connected with such general
categories as “spiritual integrity” and “mental health” should be the object of
sanctions of the law on health.
In order to achieve equal rights and
limit the basis for conflict between the separate religious communities,
confessional religious teaching in state schools should gradually be
transformed into non-confessional, which is the trend in most European
countries.
This
slow and painful evolution is a result of the complex situation of the
legislator in present-day Serbia. He has to move between the Scylla of European
imperatives and standards, presented in the criticisms by NGOs and by small
religious communities,
and the Charybdis of internal political
circumstances, mass attitudes, the real social authority and social status of
some of the religious communities, and xenophobic attitudes.
*
1.8.Some Present-day Problems of the Religious
Situation in Serbia and Montenegro
There are three main religious traditions in
contemporary Serbia and Montenegro: Orthodox Christianity, prevalent throughout
the country, Islam, concentrated in the southern regions, and Roman
Catholicism, concentrated in the northern regions. The united state is a
multi-confessional society in which, besides the majority of Orthodox
Christians, there are members of other Christian and non-Christian religious
traditions and denominations: Muslims,
Catholics, Greek-Catholics, various Protestant denominations, Jews, members of
Eastern religious cults, and others. In the province of Vojvodina
alone, there are more than 30 different religious denominations.[46] In
the predominantly Muslim Kosovo region during the
conflict /1990-1995/ nearly 800 Serbian Orthodox religious sites and 300
mosques and other Islamic sacred buildings were destroyed or damaged,
especially in 1998 and 1999.
In the early 1980s, with the start of the Kosovo conflict, a general crisis and transformation of
Yugoslav society began, accompanied by a change in the religious situation in
terms of quantity and quality. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, sociological
surveys registered a growth of religiousness among all confessions and
nationalities[47]. The Center for Political Studies and Public Opinion
registered a growth of religiousness in Serbia, not including Kosovo, of 7% /from 35% to 42%/ in the period 1990-1993.[48]
Religiousness is still a predominantly rural
phenomenon: the degree of religiousness in Belgrade was 37%, while it was 67%
among the rural population.[49] At the end of the period being studied /1993/ a growth of religiousness in the cities
was registered /38% of religious
respondents and 31% of non-religious/ and among the male population and youth.[50]
The changes in the religious profile of society after 1990 can be accounted for by the growing ethnic
homogenization (society has been divided in the course of the civil and
interethnic wars of 1991-1995) as a result of
which what was once a multi-ethnic Yugoslavia is now a set of communities, differing in religion and in ethnic belonging.
This process has naturally found expression in the
rise of confessional identification: in 1990,
84% of respondents declared their confessional
affiliation; in 1991 the percentage rose to
94,7; while in 1993 it was 96,7%, and in 1999 reached 93,5% [51]. This may explain the higher percentage of
religious people among the local confessional and demographic minorities, i.e.
the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia,
the Albanians in Macedonia, the Muslims in Serbia.
Surveys conducted in 1996, show that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, 98,9%
of the Serbs in Kosovo indicated they were religious
(Orthodox); 95% of the Muslim
respondents in Serbia declared their religiousness and 93,7% of them in Montenegro; so did 97,8% of the Albanians in Macedonia[52]. Confessional affiliation usually implies
commitment to the faith of one’s ancestors, not necessarily personal
religiousness.
As for the correlation between ethnic affiliation and
the degree of personal religiousness, the following has been registered: the
highest degree of religiousness is evident among the Hungarians – 68 %, and the Muslims – 56 %; the percentage among Serbs is 42% and among Montenegrins 25%.[53]
A sociological survey of religiousness of youths,
initiated by the Open Society Foundation of Belgrade and conducted in several
large regions of Serbia and Montenegro (Subotitsa,
Novi Sad, Pristina, Podgoritsa)
has shown that 93,7% of high school
pupils indicate their confessional affiliation.Young
Serbs, Montenegrins, Albanians indicate their confession in more than 90% of
the cases, while 90% of those who have indicated being non-religious also
accept their confessional affiliation.[54]
The general picture of religiousness in Serbia as
revealed though self-estimation in 1999 was
as follows: 59,3% indicated they were
“religious”, 21,3% were “not definite”
about the question, and 19% stated
they were “not religious”. In Montenegro the highest degree of
personal religiousness was registered among the Muslims, an average degree
among Catholics, and the lowest degree among Orthodox.[55]
As the bitter memories of the
interethnic and inter-religious conflicts gradually recede into the past,
investigators increasingly turn to the peaceful dimensions of everyday
religiousness.[56]
*
1.9.
The Church and the Politics
The interaction between the Serbian Orthodox Church
and the government elite has usually served as the basis for organizing and
directing the accumulated interethnic and interreligious
feelings of people. For centuries the state-political sphere has been the
predominant factor in this interaction, and this is true not only for Serbia,
but for the Orthodox model of state-Church relations in general, and not only
for the Orthodox model in present- day Europe[57].
For the Serbian Church itself, nationalism, as many
authors have pointed out, proves to be a last resource for preserving its role
as the dominant religious factor in society. The democratization of society
would promote a “market” of religious confessions, and would hence have
unfavorable consequences for the privileged position of the Church in this
respect. The Church is therefore willing to support the state elite in the
periods when the national project is politically dominant.
According to a critical analysis made by the Helsinki
Committee of Serbia, the social ideology of the Church and the state are
involved with the new Serbian right-wing politics[58]
or with pro-monarchy parties, which have about 15% support in Serbia. Some
radical Serbian parties have attempted to cooperate with the high-ranking
clergy in order to attract voters (the Democratic Party of Serbia, Democratic
Alternative, the Party of Serbian Unity, etc.) [59].
The Helsinki Committee has criticized the Serbian
Orthodox Church for striving to maintain its ecclesiastic monopoly over
Macedonia and Montenegro, and not recognizing the legitimacy of the Montenegrin
Orthodox Church and the autonomy of the Macedonian Orthodox Church.
On these issues the known Serbian sociologist of
religion B. Djurovic gives a different, better argued
view. The author points out that
the Montenegrins are divided on the matter of their Church; the attitude of the
Montenegrin political establishment on the issue is also undefined; given the
sharp division of the Montenegrin population concerning their independence and
a separate Montenegrin ethnic identity, if the elite vouching for state
independence prevails, then the position of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church
would be stronger.
According to B. Djurovic,
there is now in Montenegro a strong pro-Serbian aggregation of three elites,
political, intellectual and clerical[60].
The state financially aids the Serbian and Catholic Churches and the Islamic
community, but not the Montenegrin Orthodox Church. Ministers of faith of
Montenegro have never acknowledged this Church. The coordinator for issues of
faith, Prime Minister Vujanovic, has publicly stated
that for him the Serbian Orthodox Church is the only canonic church in
Montenegro[61].
Prof. Dr. D. Shijakovich, Secretary of the Secretariat on religious affairs of Serbia and Montenegro in the period 2001-2002, has also expressed the same opinion in conversation on June 22, 2004 in the University town of Nikshich, near the capital of Montenegro. He believes that the Montenegrin Orthodox Church amounts to a bunch of schismatics pursuing political goals. He cites the book “Traders in Souls”, which contains a collection of documents, letters and articles reflecting the formation of the Montenegrin Church and the reaction in the Orthodox world and the political elites of Serbia and Montenegro.
The book
contains letters by patriarchs who have expressed support of the Serbian Church
in this conflict and rejected the Montenegrin Church as not canonically
legitimate (letters from the Patriarchs of Moscow, Bulgaria, Georgia,
Constantinople, Serbia, Alexandria, Jerusalem, etc.)[62]
as well as letters by M. Dzhukanovich,[63]
President of Montenegro, to the Serbian Patriarch Pavle,
in which the President expresses support for the Serbian Church.
This division and the uncertainty about the eventual
state autonomy of Montenegro, which if it were to come about, would have an
impact on the religious situation in the country, came up in conversations I
had with Montenegrins of various regions and professions. At a meeting I had on
June 23 with the directors of the library in Tsetine,
the former capital of Montenegro, people expressed discontent and mistrust of
the economic-political situation. Poverty, unemployment, growing drug abuse
among the youths, these were the major problems that people indicated.
My interlocutors felt that religious differences were
often being used to divert the attention of people from the urgent problems.
The intellectual elite of the country has also fallen into apathy due to the
low pay, unemployment, the manipulation. The people I talked with feel that,
while in Serbia there have after all been some positive changes, here in
Montenegro things remain as they were in the totalitarian period. Unlike
Serbia, there is no religious education in schools, despite the lively debate
on this matter between the high-rank administration, the higher clergy and
academic circles. [64]
Two days after I left Podgoritsa,
the capital of Montenegro, there was to be a major religious event: seven
golden crosses were to be placed upon the nearly finished, imposing
construction of the church of the Ascension (June 27, 2004). The announcements
throughout the city indicated that the service would be performed by the
Montenegrin bishop Amfilohiye of the Serbian Orthodox
Church.
Nevertheless
the Serbian Orthodox Church
initiated and supported some inter-religious events and dialog especially during the war in Bosnia and
Herzegovina: ”the Serbian Patriarch
publicly condemned a series of bombing
attacks on the Bajrakli Mosque in Belgrade; he also
visited the chief rabbi Mr Cadik
Danon and directed a very touching ecumenical epistle
to the Jewish community after the publication of an anti-Semitic text”.[65]
According to Dr. M. Vukomanovich,
there is no a solid unity of opinion within the Serbian Orthodox Church
regarding its relations with the state and politicians. This has been confirmed
by the one of the brilliant contemporary Serbian theologians, Prof. Dr. R. Bigovich. According to this author, there are
contradictions and vagueness in the social-political doctrine of the Serbian
Orthodox Church. The Council of bishops, held in May 1990, suggested that the
Church would support the democratization of society, would be for political and
party pluralism and would remain neutral regarding parties; however these
claims have not being strictly realized in practice[66].
Various representatives of the higher clergy have
voiced support for a kind of theo-democracy, for a
Christian democracy, for monarchy; suggestions have been made about the
cooperation, coexistence of state and Church, but mostly in general terms, not
involving a concrete programme[67]. According to Bigovich,
the political ideal of unity between state, nation, and Church is Utopian;
though the nation once gave impetus to the Church, today it weighs the latter
down, and the national factor is losing the battle with the civil and
international factors.[68]
The author criticizes the prevalent opinion in the
Serbian Church that Orthodoxy is synonymous with the Serbian ethnos, for, Bigovich writes, trying to build a unity based on “blood
and body” would be tragic and perilous. “We cannot go back. The models and
forms of life of the past are no longer applicable. The past should be
respected, but not deified.”[69]
*
2.1. Legal regulation and religious differences
With the creation in 1991 of the independent state,
the Republic of Macedonia, relationships between state and the religious
communities entered a difficult period of regulation and democratization[70],
a time of internal collisions; the difficulties became obvious especially after
1995, the end of the period of conflict between the two basic ethnic groups,
the Albanians and the Macedonians.
The Law on Religious Communities and Religious Groups,
published in issue 35 of the Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia on
July 23, 1997[71], “regulates the position of the religious
communities, their foundation and operation, religious instruction and religious schools as forms of realization of religious freedom and faith expression” (Art. 1).
Articles 2 and 4 of the Law guarantee the
freedom of religious communities and groups in carrying out their religious activities, and the freedom of citizens to participate or not to participate in a
religious community or group.
Part Two of
the Law deals with the status and rights of religious communities and religious
groups, a problem that was subsequently debated in society and on which the Constitutional Court of the Republic
of Macedonia took a stand on several occasions.
Articles 8 and 9 define religious community and religious group,
the two being almost identical: “A
religious community, according to this law, is a voluntarily
organized, non-profit association of
believers of the same confession of faith. For one confession of faith, only one
registered religious community or group may exist
/Art.8/; “A religious group, according to this law, is a voluntarilly organized,
non-profit association of believers of the same belief who do not belong to an
already registered religious community.” /Art.9/.
There
are 25[72]
religious communities and groups already registered by the Commission on
Relationships with the Religious Communities and Groups; among them, the
following have the status of religious communities: The Macedonian Orthodox
Church, The Evangelical-Methodist Church, The Jewish Community,
the Roman Catholic Church, the Islamic Community. The
registered religious groups are: the
Christian-Adventist Church, the Christian Community of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the
Baptist Church, the Congregational Church, the Islam Bectash
Community and others.
According to the former Director of the Office
of Relationship with the Religious Communities and Groups, S. Nikolovki-Katin[73], the
classification as a community or a group depends on several criteria: 1) the
number of adherents of the respective confession /According to the data of the
1994 Census of the population, realized with the financial support of the
European Commission, the Orthodox Christians are 66,3%, Muslims – 30%, Roman
Catholics – 0.4%, Protestants - 0.1%, Jewish – 0.0%, Atheist – 0.3%, other
religion – 0.2%, unknown – 1.1%, Christian – 4.9%/; 2) According to their historical presence in
the country and the historical duration of their status as registered /the
Jewish Community, the Evangelical-Methodist Church/.
A sociological survey carried out in 1997-1998 by a
team of researchers of the Institute of Sociological, Political and Juridical
Studies in Skopje in the framework of the project
“Social-economic Structure and Problems of the Population of the Republic of
Macedonia”, gives somewhat different findings: Orthodox – 78.03%,
Muslims – 20.99%, Catholics – 0.18%, Protestants – 0.53, others – 0.27%[74] .
According
to Yakub Selimovski,
Director of the religious-education sector of the Islamic Community of Macedonia,
the percentage of Muslims is actually over 30% and is tending toward 40% of the
population of Macedonia (he gave this estimate in an interview he gave me on
July 8, 2004 in Skopje at the headquarters of the
Islamic community).
Whatever
the exact figures, it is evident that Macedonian society is to be a “bipolar
community, a collective of two opposed sides, which marginalizes the influence
of minority religions.”[75]. This
difference can be perceived by any outside observer of religious buildings in the
two parts of the capital Skopje: one sees numerous
mosques in the old part of Skopje and the enormous
Millennium Cross, erected in honour of the 2000th
anniversary of Christianity, on a hilltop overlooking Skopje,
and, Selimovski claimed, is accepted halfheartedly by
the Muslim community in this multi-confessional capital.
According
to him, the Law on Religious Communities and Groups has its positive sides and
overall the Muslim community in Macedonia is far better treated by the state
today than in the past. But he also believes that the government nevertheless
gives some preference to the Macedonian Orthodox Church, especially in giving
financial assistance for the construction of religious buildings: thus the
equal standing of the religious communities seems to exist more on paper than
as an actual fact on that issue.
The
social and political environment in which the Law is operating is made more
complicated by the distinct trend in the last 15 years, particularly evident in
the countries of former Yugoslavia, toward ethno-confessional synthesis. This
linking of ethnic and confessional factors is particularly strong and with
significant social consequences among the Macedonian ethnos (98.03% of which
are Orthodox) and in the Albanian ethnic group, with its 97.36% of Muslims, as
registered in a sociological survey in 1999.[76]
The
social consequences of this fact become weightier due to the regionalization of the ethnic-confessional relations. In
Eastern and Southern Macedonia the Orthodox population predominates (98.40 and
98.42% respectively); in the Western parts, the Muslim population is a majority
(57.78%), and in the North of the country it amounts to a high percentage
(27.69%). This regionalization of ethnic and
confessional groups serves as the basis (or so politicians argue) for the
current administrative reforms that legitimize this division at the local
level. I was a witness to the discontent provoked by these reforms, expressed
very emotionally by the Skopje citizens of Macedonian
ethnic origin at a rally organized on July 8 by an opposition party called the
Third Road.
The
social trend of “Confidence building through interreligious
dialog”[77] is supported by the
religious communities, NGOs, governmental structures, etc. recent years.
*
2.2.
The politics: beyond the religious and the ethnic differences?
In this
connection the political parties, especially those represented in parliament,
can play a great role. What is more, the very practical impact of the Law on
religious groups depends directly on the political climate. At the time of the
former parliamentary mandate, in which the governing party was VMRO – DPMNE,
the Macedonian Orthodox Church and the Orthodoxy issue were included actively
in the nationalistic and political agenda of this party, the Church having been
given various kinds of preferences.
The
present ruling party, with its social-democratic orientation (SDSM), has no
special attitude to any confession, claims Dr. T. Moyanoski,
Chairman of the Commission on Relations with Religious Communities and
Religious groups, when I interviewed him on July 9, 2004 in the Commission
office in Skopje. The examples he gave in support of
this claim were the following: 1) in recent years it has become a tradition to
exchange teachers between the Theological Faculty and the Islamic Faculty and
great interest is shown by students of the respective faculties for these
lectures; 2) in the region of Kichevsko, in the
church dedicated to Holy Virgin, both Muslims and Orthodox come to worship,
which sets an example of religious tolerance that is particularly needed after
the time of religious-ethnic conflict (1991-1995); 3) in the time of the late
President B. Traykovski, a Forum for Inter-religious
Dialogue was created, in the framework of which the various religious
communities in the country met to keep up their dialogue; 3) in 2003 in the
Macedonian Academy of Sciences, a meeting
was held on the topic of the Holocaust, and all religious communities
and groups in Macedonia took part in the discussions; 4) The Commission on
Relations between Religious Communities and Religious Groups seeks to find ways
to make the forums between religions a traditional way of resolving the problem
arising between them and to seek the active cooperation of NGOs in the process,
for the latter have proven to be the best mediators promoting inter-religious
dialogue.
Dr. Moyanoski also claims that the social-psychological
stereotypes, formed by the political ideology and the propaganda, also lie at
the bottom of the conflict between Macedonians and Albanians, between Orthodox
and Muslims: Albanians perceive Macedonians as people who oppress and exploit
them, while Macedonians see Albanians as an ethnos bent on taking over the
state. In fact the Albanians, personally and in their family traditions, are
mild-mannered and hospitable people, who value friendship and social exchange,
said Dr. Moyanoski.
The
estimate that the predominant variety of Islam in this country is comparatively
tolerant and without theocratic intentions in its religious program, was also
expressed by Dr. S. Sasaykovski of the Institute of
Sociological, Political and Juridical
Studies at the University St.St. Cyril and Methodiy, when I interviewed him in the building of this
institute in Skopje on July 7, 2004.[78]
My
personal impressions, limited and sporadic, at meetings and conversations with
Albanian Muslims, confirm such a view about relations at the everyday level. In
the courtyard of the Suleyman Murat
mosque I talked to A., a 50-year old MA in law, unemployed, and with D., a
middle-aged mathematics teacher. The two men mostly talked about their
children, their family and profession, about the problem of unemployment and
poverty, rather than about religious or political issues.
A.
expressed the opinion that the Western model of social organization was
different from that of his people, for it does not set such a high value on the
family, on children, on friendship, on human social communication, things that,
A. said, are fundamental values among the Albanians. When I asked him about his
attitude towards the Albanian ethnic parties, he answered: “Their ideas have
nothing to do with my thoughts and feelings, and I don’t want to have anything
to do with them.”
According
to D., in their mutual relations Macedonians and Albanians ought to stress what
they have in common: “we have a common water supply, electricity supply, we buy
at the same markets, we have a common transport service, the difference in
religions is not dangerous when we remember haw many things we have in common.”
Such
ideas and themes seemed to predominate in my talks with ordinary people,
Macedonians that I happened to meet during my travels for my current project: a
student at the Musical Academy in Sofia, who was traveling back to Ohrid on vacation and who shared with me his feeling there
were no prospects because of the economic stagnation in his country – so he was
working in Bulgaria; a middle-aged taxi driver with a higher education in
economy, who, due to economic difficulties in his country, was forced to work
outside his professional field; a woman working as a hotel clerk, whose son, a
university graduate, was unemployed and wanted to emigrate from the country…
All these people considered such problems to be the important themes for their
country: economic growth, decreasing unemployment, responsible and tolerant
political governance. They felt that the solution to these problems would
gradually lead to tolerance in the religious sphere as well, and that the
differences and conflicts would gradually be overcome.
But Dr. Cacanoska, a known Macedonian sociologist of religion, drew
a disturbing conclusion from a survey carried out in 1999-2000: “According to
the influence of internal and “external factor”, these two collectivities are developing
as independent and clearly distinct communities, who stress with growing
clarity their difference of positions. With unnoticeable intensity, the
religious collectivities practice mutual exclusion, closure, self-sufficiency,
ignorance and indifference to other confessions, which necessarily leads to
further disintegration of the confessional community, which does not open
possibilities to overcome opposition between them, but instead contributes to
growing radicalization.”[79]
Four years after
this analysis was made, there is reason to believe that after years of crises
and extremist stands, we are now witnessing attempts at opening to one another
and dialogue between the religious communities. But the present disturbances,
the discussions and discontent about the new regulations on administrative and
linguistic matters, suggest that the confessional-ethnic division is still a
fact and can easily be exacerbated and manipulated by the state or politicians.
All this demonstrates “the fragile ground on which
the Màcedonian state, church and ethnic identity are
standing”.[80]
*
2.3.The
Politics, the Nation and the Macedonian Orthodox Church
One of the dimensions of this “fragile ground” is the
inter-ecclesiastic situation of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, whose struggle
for gaining autocephalous status for itself has not been supported by the
Serbian Church. The latter has reinstated the autonomous Ohrid
Archbishopric within the SOC in
2002. The argument for doing so was that the Macedonian Orthodox Church was
said to be a formation of the Communist authorities, schismatic and heretical.[81]
Thus, by not recognizing the independent status of the
Macedonian Church and by establishing an alternative archbishopric of Ohrid, the Serbian Orthodox Church has also made a
statement about how it sees the independence of the Republic of Macedonia as a
state, says the Serbian sociologist of religion B. Djurovic.[82]
The complicated relations between Churches of the
Orthodox oecumene on this issue have been analyzed in
a study entitled “The Political Sociology of the MOC” /in Macedonian,
unpublished/ by the Macedonian sociologist of religion Dr. S. Sasaikovski; they have also been a topic in the Bulgarian
press[83], whose journalists have described the
complicated situation of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, whose loyalty to the
Serbian Church has been put to a test in connection with the problem of
autocephalous status of the Macedonian Church.
According to S. Susuykovski, the idea of an autocephalous Macedonian
Orthodox Church is the result of the coinciding interests of the clergy, of the
religious community and of the political establishment[84]. According
to this author the autocephalous status of the MOC is not determined by
historical facts, nor does it have a foundation in canon. The achievement of
such a status depends entirely on the constellation of relations within the
Orthodox universal community and specifically on relations between
Constantinople and Moscow.
The link between
autocephalous Church and the Macedonian ethnic identity is a process of
political use of the issue, according to Susuykovski.
Thus the MOC has become a transmission of the ruling parties rather than an
authoritative institution in its own right. The canonic principle that a nation
with a state of its own should also have an independent Church, is based on the
Byzantine Orthodox theocratic model of symphony between state and Church.
According
to Susuykovski, this principle is not applicable and
not adequate under conditions of secularism where Church and state are
separated, and such is the European model. According to the Constitution of the
Republic of Macedonia, the Orthodox Church does not have the status of a state
Church.
Although the Republic of Macedonia has been recognized as an independent state, the institutional status of one of the religious components of its identity is still undefined. In “Declaration of support for the autocephalous status of the Macedonian Orthodox Church”, published in the Official Gazette of the Republic on February 2, 2004, the Parliament of Macedonia has declared in four points its support for the MOC “and its autocephalous status among other Orthodox Churches, with the conviction that these processes will develop in a democratic and tolerant spirit, in mutual cooperation and respect.” The Declaration also stated that “The Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia will continue to work for affirming the freedom of confession as a personal liberty of man and will contribute to the mutual respect between all citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, regardless of religious, national or other affiliation.”
*
2.4. Cases and issues regarding the legal status of
religious communities and groups in the state
Articles 2, 4, 6, and 7 of the Law on Religious
Communities and Religious Groups deal with the rights and liberties of
religious communities and of citizens in performing religious activities
such as rites,
publishing,
running schools, social and charity organizations, the right of choice of
participation or non-participation in religious communities and groups, etc.
The
religious communities or groups are free to perform
religious activities and rituals /Art.2/. It is
forbidden for a citizen to be forced to or
obstructed in any way from becoming
or being a member
of a religious community or group. It is forbidden for a
citizen to be forced to participate or not
participate in religious rituals or other kinds of faith expression /Art.4/.
Religious
gatherings, religious rituals, religious press, religious instruction,
religious schools, and other kinds of expression
of faith cannot be used for political
aims, for encouragement of religious, national and other kinds of intolerance, nor
for other activities forbidden
by the Constitution and law /Art.6/; Religious
communities and groups may establish religious schools according
to the procedure and
under conditions regulated by this law.
Religious
communities and groups may establish social and humanitarian
institutions
in procedure and under conditions regulated by law
/Art.7/.
Section
3 of this Law, states the rights and conditions for opening religious schools.
Religious education is allowed only in religious schools, in accordance with
art. 24 of the Law. The latest information indicates that the issue of
religious education in the public schools is open again [85].
The
Second Part of the Law deals with particularly delicate questions as to the
conditions under which religious communities and groups may acquire legal
status and perform religious activities. The importance of these regulations
has been proven by their being examined by the Constitutional Court of the
Republic of Macedonia several times, when several of them were invalidated,
specifically some of the rules pertaining to acquisition of legal status by
religious communities and groups.
Some of
these annulled articles are numbers 3, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 22, which were
entirely or partially invalidated at the sessions of the Constitutional Court
on December 23 and 24, 1998. The Court was appealed to by the Christian Baptist Church, the Evangelical Church, the
Evangelic-Congregational Church and the Christian Pentecostal Church.
Art. 3, paragraph 1 states
that, “Only a registered religious community or group can
perform religious activities and rituals in the Republic of Macedonia” while
art. 10 defines that “A
religious group with headquarters in the Republic of Macedonia, must be
established by at least 50 adults, citizens of the Republic of Macedonia, permanently residing in the
Republic of Macedonia. The founders of a
religious group make decisions for establishment and other rules for regulation
of their organization and operation at the
assembly of the founders.
The
requirement as to the minimal number of 50 members
for registration, obviously represents an obstacle to obtaining legal status
for many Protestant Churches, whose members vary in number from 5 to 50.[86] I
visited most of the headquarters of these small Church communities in Skopje and could easily make the obvious comparison between
the modest size and architectural quality of their buildings and those of the
large religious communities.
This
outward difference itself reveals a difference of approach towards different
categories of believers: in the first case activities are “close up, in small
groups or individually”[87]; in
the second case work is done at a distance, with a clear division between the
clergy and the congregation, a division into a “public” and a sacral scene.
That is why supporting mediators are needed to strengthen the fragile link,
such as large social projects, national and ethnic emblems of identification,
which turn the large social communities into a public and add a backstage
political element to the sacral scene.
Art. 13
and 14 confirm the need for registration for obtaining the status of a legal
person, while for building religious sites, art. 22 requires the agreement of
the Commission for Religious Communities and Groups.
At the
initiative of the Helsinki Committee on Human Rights, the Constitutional Court
of Macedonia, at its sessions of October 20 and November 10, made annulled
articles 19 and 23 of the Law. Art. 19 makes the performance of religious
activities outside locations specially meant for this purpose, dependent on the
consent of the Ministry of the Interior and the Commission on Relations of
Religious Communities and Groups: “Religious rituals and religious activities
may be performed in other facilities and places accessible to the people as
well, with permission of the authority in charge of internal affairs, and
previous opinion of the authority in charge of religious affairs.”
The
nullification of some articles of the law by the Constitutional Court of
Macedonia was due to their being incompatible with art. 9, par.1 of the
Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, which stipulates that citizens are
equal in their rights and freedoms, with article 19, par. 1, which guarantees
the freedom of religious confessions, with art. 20, par. 1, which guarantees
the freedom of association for pursuing various interests, while according to
par. 3 of that article, the activities of citizens and parties cannot be aimed
at provoking military aggression or the kindling of national, racial or
religious hatred and intolerance.
The
grounds for Court’s decisions refer also to art. 18 and 29 of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
*
2.5.
The elaboration of the new democratic law: latest developments
To all
appearances, after the decision of the Court, the Law cannot serve as an
effective tool for regulating this complex and delicate matter. According to
information received from Dr. T. Moyanoski (in the
above-mentioned interview of July 8, 2004), the public and the authorities
responsible for legislature in this field are considering and discussing
several variants of a new, better and more modern law. He believes that the
legal status of religious communities and groups will be one of the major
issues, and this status is not made very clear in the present law.
Several
such laws are being considered, among which the Bulgarian Law on Religious
Confessions, which, in Dr. Moyanoski’s opinion,
offers a good solution, giving religious groups the status of non-profit
organizations. Another possible variant is the American one: civic associations
are completely separate and independent of the state. The Commission on
relations with religious communities and groups, headed by Dr. Moyanoski, is also considering the Croatian variant of a
solution, to conclude separate agreements between the state and each of the
religious communities and groups with regard to rights, freedoms, and
responsibilities.
Probably
this latter, interesting variant will be the topic of serious debate, for in
the interview with him, given on July 7, the Director of the Cultural and
Educational Department of the Islamic community, Mr. Y. Selimovski,
expressed his preference for such a legal variant, as the legal regulation of
relations would provide wider legal possibilities for protecting the religious
rights through appeal to higher authorities such as the Constitutional Court,
the European organs and organizations, etc.
Regardless
of what the final result of this process might be, Dr. Moyanoski
expressed his conviction that it is imperative to set up a permanent forum at
which all religious communities and groups in Macedonia can exchange views,
discuss and come to agreements.
According to one of the members of the team preparing
the new Draft Law on Religious Communities, Mr. G.Velichkovski
(with whom I talked on May 16, 2005 in Novi Sad), currently intensive work is
being done for making the kind of changes and improvements in the Law that will
bring it closer to the basic European principles of tolerance, freedom, and equality,
and to separation between Church and state both de jure
and de facto.[88]
That opinion was confirmed by Prof. I. Korubin – another member of the team working on the new
Draft Law - at June 4, 2005 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
at the International conference “Religion and Politics”. The team harmonized
the Draft with the main European legal standards and after the completion of
the work will present it before the public opinion. According to Prof. Korubin the Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina is an excellent example
of the acceptance of the European standards in the state-Church sphere.[89]
But just as in the Serbian Law, one of the main
questions is whether the law will “get through” the Parliament and become a
legal fact, given the complicated social-political context, analyzed above.
*
2.6. Recommendations:
Here are summarized
some features of the Law that are contested or reveal shortcomings in the
democratic sense of the legislators as is the case in some other post-communist
countries:[90]
To pass gradually from obligatory to
optional legal status of religious communities. To afford the alternative /as
in the Serbian and Bulgarian laws/ for religious communities to acquire legal
status as civic associations as well under the respective law.
Decreasing the minimal membership
requirement for registration of a religious community to the number customary
in most European countries or dropping this requirement altogether.
Regarding the application documents,
to eliminate the requirement for detailed information about the members,
leaders and location of the religious community. To set a specific term for
responding to an application for registration, preferably up to 30 days, as in
most European countries. To provide the possibility for reapplying when registration
is denied after the requirements of the registering organ have been met.
To plan a gradual reorientation of
the registration function from the state to the courts of law.
To pass towards a flexible regime of permission and
support, not control and prohibition, on issues related to the religious,
educational, cultural, construction activities of religious communities. This
demands a change of philosophy with regard to them: they should be considered
“innocent till proved guilty” rather than “guilty till proved innocent”.
Current debates on the question of introducing
religious education in public schools should be oriented to non-confessional
education in order to achieve equal standing of religions and limit the field
of conflict between separate religious communities, which is the trend in most
European countries.
* * *
3.
The Bulgarian Religious Situation Now: the Law and the Social-political Atmosphere
*
3.1.Freedom of religious
convictions and the equality of religious confessions before the law: general
principles
The new democratic
Constitution, adopted on July 13, 1991, recognized the equality under law of
all citizens, without “any constraints on the rights and privileges, based on
race, nationality, ethnos, sex, origin, religion, education, personal or social
status, or property status, convictions, political affiliations.”[91]
/art. 6, paragraph 2/. The new Law on Religion passed by the Parliament on
December 20, 2002 /supported strongly by the ruling party NDSV /National
Movement Symeon II/, provided a legal framework for
this article of the Constitution.[92]
The democratic evolution to
the new Act was slow and difficult[93]
as in other post-communist countries.
The new Religious Denominations Act,[94] published in the official State Gazette, No. 120 of December 29, 2002, asserts “the right of each person to freedom of conscience and religion, as well as equality before the law, regardless of religious affiliation and conviction.” And supports “mutual understanding, tolerance and respect with regards to freedom of conscience and religion.” /Preamble/.
In “General Provisions” of the Law, the legislator establishes that “The right to religious freedom is fundamental, absolute, subjective, personal, and inviolable” /art. 2, par.1/. Likewise, “The right of to religious freedom shall include the right of every person to freely form his or her religious beliefs, and to choose, change, and worship – respectively practice freely his or her religion - individually or collectively, in public or in private, through religious worship, education, rites, and rituals.” /art. 2, par. 2/. Article 3(1) again affirms the freedom of religious convictions: “No one shall be persecuted and no one’s rights shall be restricted on the grounds of religious beliefs…..”
The
articles 4 and 6 state that confessions are free and equal under the law,
separate from the state; discrimination based on faith is inadmissible, as also
the intervention of the state in the internal organization of religious
communities and institutions. Art. 6 enumerates the particular rights
encompassed in the right of religious freedom: creating and maintaining
religious communities and institutions; establishing and maintaining places of
worship or religious assembly; creating and maintaining appropriate charitable
or humanitarian institutions; writing, publishing and dissemination of
religious publications; giving and receiving religious instruction in a
language freely chosen by the person; creating and maintaining appropriate
institutions for teaching (in the judgment of the communities and institutions)
in abiding by legal requirements; the parents and legal guardians have the
right to provide religious education for their children according to the
parents’ personal convictions.
Compared with the Law on
Religious Confessions of 1949[95],
the new Law emphasizes much more strongly the religious rights and liberties of
citizens and the equality under law of the separate confessions. At the same
time the strict regard for these legal principles depends to a large degree on
the condition of the political and judiciary system, on the attitudes of the
media and on mass public feelings, which
are usually restrictive with regard to some Protestant churches and New
religious movements /the so-called sects/. Sociological surveys have shown that
the less respondents know about NRM, the more negatively they are disposed
toward these movements, which clearly shows that such attitudes are a matter of
prejudice and traditional mentality. [96]
*
3.2.Rights relevant to
religious activity, education, charitable works
Art. 12 (1) states that
religious confessions, for their own purposes, may establish houses of ritual,
worship, or divine service for the purpose of holding public religious rites
and services in a building of their own or leased, can organize public
activities outside the houses of worship /par.2/, and also maintain cemetery
parks.
Article 30 (1) stipulates that “Religious denominations registered under this Act may establish medical, social, and education institutions”, while art. 33(1) states that “Upon permission by the Minister of Education and Science registered religious denominations may establish ecclesiastical schools for their own religious needs in compliance with the National Education Act.” Paragraphs 3 and 6 of this article permit for registered confessions to open secondary and higher schools in observing the respective legal regulations.
In this part of the new law far greater rights and liberties are conferred in various spheres of confessional activity.
*
3.3. Property and Financing
Chapter Four of the Law regulates this area. According to art. 21, denominations and their divisions, having obtained the status of legal entities, have the right to own property, including the right to property and limited real rights on immovables, on fruits of property, including rent, profits and dividends from participation in commercial association, property rights on movables, including stocks, rights relevant to the Copyright Law and similar rights, revenues from state subsidies, donations, legacies and others.
The state and communities
can yield the right of use of state and municipal property to religious
institutions and their local divisions, as well as support the latter by
subsidies provided for in the state or municipal budget. Art. 23 (1) stipulates
that registered religious denominations have the rights to produce and sell
items connected with their religious service, rituals, and rites, while art. 27
(1) states that legal entities for non-profit purposes may be created for
supporting and popularizing a confession that has the status of a legal entity.
Art. 25(1) defines the right
of the state “to support and encourage
religious denominations registered under this Act in their religious, social,
educational and health activities through tax, credit, and interest rate
preferences, customs and other financial and economic relief under the
conditions and procedures established in the respective specialized
legislation.
Art. 28 stipulates that the distribution of state subsidies for registered denominations is carried out through the State Budget Act, while the concluding regulations of the Law stipulate that the property rights of confessions are restored over nationalized, alienated, confiscated or illegally deprived property by legal proceedings – paragraph 5 (1).
With these regulations the
rights and liberties of the denominations are also increased in the economic
sphere and, most important, the distribution of state subsides now comes under
authority of the parliament, which would permit a more just distribution among
the non-traditional confessions.
*
3.4.Conditions for acquiring
legal status and the role of the state
Art. 14 states that
“Religious communities can acquire the status of a legal entity under the
conditions and procedures of this law”, while art. 15(1) states that the
registration of religious communities as legal entities is carried out by the
Municipal Court of Sofia .
Chapter 6 of the Law regulates the role of the
state – the Council of Ministers and its administrative division, the
Directorate on Religious Denominations, for carrying out state policy in the
filed of the right of religious confession. states that According to art. 35, this Directorate makes
expert conclusions in connection with the registration of the denominations
regarding the request for residing in the country on the part of foreign
religious officials, examines signals and complaints by citizens about the
violation of their rights and liberties through misuse of religious rights,
observes the respect of religious rights and liberties by the officials, checks
signals and complaints about unlawful religious activity, and makes proposals
before the Council of Ministers on the project for the state budget for distribution
of the state subsidy.
In the “Transitional and
Final Provisions” par. 2(1) it is pointed out that “Registered religious
denominations under art. 6 of the Religious Denominations Act (Repealed by Par.
8 of this Act) shall preserve their legal entity status; (2)”Within one month
from this Act’s entry into force the Directorate of Religious Denominations
shall submit to the Sofia City Court the register of the registered
denominations and their bylaws.”
Critics of the Law point out
the defining of legal registration as a condition for exercising rights, as a
shortcoming of the law.
The positive aspects are in
the transference of registration under the authority of the court, not the
Directorate as in the previous law. Moreover, the competence of the Directorate
is reduced and consists mostly in expertise and consultation. According to data of the Directorate on
Religious Denominations, by December 29, 2002, there were 31 registered
religious denominations.
Regardless of the problems of some new religious movements, 15 new denominations have been registered at the Sofia Court and 8 new applications have been made.
The Director of the Directorate on Religious Denominations at the Council of Ministers Dr. I. Zhelev is convinced, that the law works well till now and the religious communities are quite satisfied by the practice concerning the law[97].
*
3.5. Critical analysis of the Act
Regardless of its positive
aspects, compared to the law of 1949 and the fact that it has taken into
consideration the basic European standards in this sphere, the new Religious
Denominations Act was quite critically judged by certain organizations for the
protection of rights, by representatives of the new religious movements, by the
largest opposition party, the Union of Democratic Forces.
As a result of this, the European Commission recommenced temporarily monitoring the religious rights in Bulgaria and, the matter being referred by a group of parliamentary deputies to the Constitution Court; the latter examined at two of its sessions whether the Act was constitutional or not; at its session of July 15 2003 the members of the Court voted not to support the demand of a group of deputies, thereby confirming, according to the Court’s legal procedure, the Religious Denominations Act as constitutional.
The causes for this
criticism and disagreement lie in articles 7, 8, and 10 of the Law.
Art. 7(1) states that “The
freedom of religion shall not be directed against the national security, public
order, public health and morals or the rights and freedoms of persons under the
jurisdiction of the Republic of Bulgaria.”; (2) “Religious communities and
institutions as well as religious beliefs shall not be used for political purposes”; (5)
Religious communities and institutions cannot include in their activities
juveniles, except with the explicit agreement of the parents or guardians.
Minors can be included in activities of religious communities and institutions
except for the explicit disagreement of their parents or guardians.
According to art. 8(1) “If
the requirements of Art. 7 are violated the right to religious freedom may be
restricted by: 1/ Terminating the dissemination of a particular publication;
2/Terminating publishing activity; 3/ Restricting public events; 4/Canceling
the registration of an educational, health or social institution; 5/ Canceling
activity for 6 months; 6/Canceling the legal entity status of a religious
denomination”.
Critics of the law pointed
out that the notion of “national security”, “public order”, “morals” are too
vague and imply subjective construing, i.e. they permit freedom of application
and abuse by the judiciary regarding given confessions. In the context of
anti-“sect” mass feelings, this possibility can easily become a reality. Hence
this part of the rights of confessions may be safely dropped.
The chief criticism leveled by the Union of Democratic Forces refers to the art. 10 (1) of the law that states: “Eastern Orthodox is the traditional denomination in the Republic of Bulgaria. It has played a historic role in Bulgaria’s statehood and has current meaning in its political life. Its spokesperson and representative is the autocephalous Bulgarian Orthodox Church…/The specialists on the issue accept the “traditional Church” status as compatible with the European legal standards and practice [98]/ ; (2) The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is a legal entity…(3) No Act or secondary legislature shall use Paragraphs 1 and 2 as grounds to grant privileges or any advantages.”
Criticism was based on the interpretation of this article whereby the very law assigns legal status to the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and to one of the two opposed synods, that headed by Patriarch Maxim. In this way the intervention of the state in the internal ecclesiastic division of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was criticized.
*
3.6. The
Schism, the Political Parties and the Act
Since 1992, the Bulgarian
Orthodox Church has been in a state of painful and lasting schism. In coming to
power after the democratic changes of the early 1990s, the party Union of
Democratic Forces proclaimed that the Holy Synod of the BOC had been a
collaborator of the communist regime. Three of the bishops belonging to the
circle of associates of the Patriarch Maxim founded a new, authentic synod,
which received legal status under the administration of the UDF.
The complicated and
contradictory processes around this second synod suggest there was a strong
intervention of the state in the religious affairs of the BOC, and show a lack
of understanding and respect for Church cannon. After the UDF fell from power
in 1993 and the former communist party, the BSP, came to power in its turn,
state support was transferred to the Synod headed by the Patriarch Maxim.
None of the canonic Orthodox
Churches in the world recognized the new synod, but the administration of the
UDF, come back to power in 1997, did recognize it. In 1996 a schismatic
ecclesiastic council elected Pimen patriarch.
Analysts believe the schism
has political, economic and religious causes.[99]
The
political causes involve the political interests of the parties coming to power
in turn and successively supporting either side of the divided Church.
The economic interests
involve ownership of the property of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (it is
revealing that in July 2004, with the brutal intervention of the court and
police, 250 Church properties were seized and the clergymen of the alternative
synod who occupied them were violently thrown out). Yet as strange as it may
sound, the BOC has never raised the question of the restitution of its
nationalized property.
The participation of the legal institutions and especially of the police in solving the conflict was criticized by the Bulgarian citizens and by media.[100] The critic of the Law has been recommenced recently on the above issue[101].
The ultimate result of the
schism, to which the ruling party NMSS coercively put an end, first through the
Religious Denominations Act in 2002 and then by the intervention of court and
police in 2004, was the complete loss of authority and trust in the BOC.
Against the backdrop of this low public status, no kind of activity or stance
of the BOC would be respected and significant.
Thus the political elite failed to win a
partner for its cause, but rather eliminated a potential rival.
*
3.7.
Recommendations
Here are summarized some
features of the Religious Denominations Act that are contested or reveal
shortcomings in the democratic sense of the legislators as is the case in some
other post-communist countries[102]:
1/Regarding Religious
freedom and the equality of religious communities:
-
Registration in court as a condition for religious
activity
-
Requiring a presentation of the religious teaching
as a condition for registration
-
The right and obligation of the Directorate of
Religious Denominations to give expert opinions in the course of
registration
-
The criteria for registration and the possibilities
for a different type of legal status in the case of refusal are not clearly
defined
2/Some problems
in the application of the Law[103]:
-
Local branches of a religious confession are not in
all cases granted the right to carry on religious activity even though they
have a registration.
-
Negative public attitudes against the new religious
movements exist, but has gradually lessened during the last 5 years.
-
Some visa problems connected with prolonging the
stay of religious missionaries and leaders.
-
Problems concerning return of Church property
*
The improvement of the Act
within the European perspective means:
To decrease the obligatory
link between legal status of a religious community and the performance of
activities for which legal status is not a necessary condition: cultural,
educational, charity; to permit the possibility of extending the distribution
of state subsidies to unregistered religious communities as well. In the Law
the possibility of religious communities to be registered according to the law
of civic associations should be explicitly formulated.
It would
be in the spirit of European legal standards to indicate the exact term in
which the competent organs must answer an application for registration –
usually 30 days – and to allow the renewal of a rejected application after the
recommendations of the registering organ, presented in writing, are fulfilled.
If there
is a positive fact, the registration of the religious communities should be the
obligation of the court; relieving the Directorate on Religious Denominations
of some functions in this process (art. 35) would support the democratic trend
toward limiting the intervention of the state: giving expert opinion on
registration, examining signals and complaints of citizens as to the violation
of their religious rights, etc.
In the documents required for registration of the religious community, the element “presenting religious beliefs and religious practice” should be dropped, inasmuch as their assessment is not in the competence of the registering organ.
The category “national
security” should be dropped from art. 7(1), as it does not correspond to the
formulation of ECHR 9 (2), ratified on September 1992. The sanctions envisaged
for violation of the requirements of art. 7 impute collective guilt and concern
the public activity of the religious community. In the Macedonian law, for
instance, most of the sanctions are monetary fines.
Although no abuses of these
legal rules have been established, the practice of abolishing a given religious
community should be resorted to as en extreme and exceptional measure, inasmuch
as it falls under the definition of imputing collective guilt. The interpretation
of the conditions under which abolishment is possible depends on the democratic
culture of society, hence a clearer and more precise formulation is needed.
The constitutional idea of
the quality of citizens with respect to their religious convictions should be
confirmed and all religious communities must be placed under identical
conditions for acquiring legal status. The leadership of the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church should be chosen on the basis of its internal laws and regulations.
*
3.8.The religious situation in the present-day Bulgaria
According to data from the statistical census /NSI,
2001/[104],
the confessional belonging of the Bulgarian citizens is as follows: Eastern
Orthodox – 82.6%; Muslims – 12.2%; Catholics – 0.6%; Protestants – 0.5%; Armeno-Gregorians – 0.1%; other – 0.1%; not indicated –
3.9%. A strong correspondence is observed between ethnic and religious
belonging, especially among Bulgarians /Eastern Orthodoxy/ and Bulgarian Turks / Islam/.
The results are quite different in the analysis of
religiousness.
The sociological survey carried out four years after
the beginning of the changes registered that religion and the Church were
important for about 36% of the respondents. Women and elderly persons attach
greater importance to religion than males and persons in the active age groups.
The latter groups search for active, pragmatic solutions to the uncertainty and
instability attending social challenges.
Research on the “Ethnic-cultural situation in
Bulgaria” /unpublished/, carried out by a team of sociologists, ethnographers,
demographers, etc. in 1992, gives a more detailed picture of religiosity in the
changing Bulgaria. The data show that hardly 10% of the Christians in Bulgaria
identify themselves as “deeply
religious”, every fourth person does not attend church services, and 21% of the
deeply religious persons do not pray.
The sociological surveys carried out 8 years after the
beginning of the changes, showed that 15,5% of the respondents believed
definitely in God or Allah, 47% believed “to some degree”, 10% believed but not
in God, 8.9% identified as atheists, and 18.7% were not interested in religion [105].
In general, these findings reflect a process of
fermentation, of individuation, of a more open and non-traditional attitude to
the religious rituals, dogmas, beliefs. As in Western
Europe, only a small percentage of people practice the kind of religiosity that
includes doctrinal knowledge, strict observation of Christian moral rules and
ritual practices as a life style.
At first sight it looks as if the present-day
religious freedom is favorable for the authority and the social importance of
the Church. The churches are full of people on the major religious feasts; the
mass media are devoting growing attention to religion and to ecclesiastic
issues; the Theological Faculty has been re-established; “Religion” is being introduced as an optional
subject in the school curriculum; part of the nationalized Bulgarian Orthodox
Church property has been returned to the Church.
But the conservatism and the ecclesiastic
institutional instability and strife have set the Church away from the cultural
fermentation of present-day public consciousness. The Church schism, continuing
for more than 13 years, has largely reduced the authority of and public
confidence in the Church. The institutional schism has divided the bishops of
the Bulgarian Orthodox Church into two hostile alternative synods, both
claiming legitimacy, and vying for Church property, holding alternative
celebrations of religious holidays, etc.
This division and opposition was a reflection of and
was influenced by the political opposition between the two main Bulgarian
political parties in the beginning of the democratic changes, the Bulgarian
Socialist Party (former Communists) and the Union of Democratic Forces.
The process of
politicization and schism alienated the Church from the need and problems of
the believers. There are differences between post-communist countries with regard to expectations and
hopes regarding the social and cultural role of the Church.[106]
Bulgaria is among the most skeptical about the role of the Church in solving
these problems: the Eastern part of Germany (27.6%), Bulgaria (33.9%), Czech
Republic (36.4%), Estonia (38.5%). In the middle range of the scale are Hungary
(42.3%), Belarus (44.5%), Slovenia (46.8%), Latvia (52.8%), Russia (55.1%),
Slovakia (59.7%), and Croatia (60%). The highest shares of respondents in
Rumania (74.7%), Lithuania (74.4%), the Ukraine (63.1%), and Poland (62.7%) feel
that the Church can contribute significantly to solving the moral, family,
spiritual, and social problems of society.
“We would like to build the
future of our peoples by the reason of the past and by the experience of the
present-day.”[107]
– that hope is still alive.
3.9.
The Bulgarian situation of Religious Education in School
The Bulgarian Law of Public Education stresses the secular type of the education in the primary and the secondary schools/ art.4/.
In 1997-1998 in the
Bulgarian schools was introduced “Religion” / “Christianity” and “Islam”/ as
optional subject expected to motivate tolerance and pluralism. The Ministry of
Education is responsible for approval of the textbooks[108].
The authors of the experimental textbook on “Religion”/Sofia, 1998/ for 5th-6th
classes say in the Introduction: “ The content of the book focuses on the most
important part of the religious-moral culture of Christianity”. The main issue
of the 7th-8th classes text book on “Religion” is “the
Church and the Christian life”. This
book gives general information about other religions too: Judaism, Islam,
Buddhism, etc. The parents are responsible for the choice of the RE in
the primary school. The 12th class of the school education
introduced two years ago an optional subject “Philosophy” with 5 modules.
“World Religions” is one of them, expected to give comparative cognitive vision
on the world religions.
The passed years showed no mass interest towards those subjects. In some schools they even could not start.
One
of the main problems is the discrepancy and controversy between some of the
presented topics and issues, and the knowledge of these same issues given by
other subjects at school. For example the idea of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, for the separation of body and soul, the miracles of healing, the
immaculate conception, life after death and others that are central for
Christianity contradict the main postulates in the biology, philosophy and
history textbooks. This may lead to ambiguity and consequent choice of one or
the other interpretation by the student. It can also lead to lowering the
“rating” of the subject because it does not meet the common rational and
scientific standards.
Such
opinions were expressed by students in 15 Serbian schools interviewed in 2003 –
the interest in the “veronauka” /the name of the
confessional religious subject in school/ is accompanied by opinions that in
some of its parts resembles a fairy tale, with miracles, wizardries and
fantasies. Probably this contradiction between religion and the conventional
knowledge taught at school not only in Serbia, but also in Bulgaria, explains
why the subject’s standard is so frail and is usually preferred as a selective,
not core discipline.
At
the same time this is one of the reasons why many European countries’ education
systems prefer the non-confessional (not connected to any particular faith)
teaching of religion – Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, Scotland, Holland,
Slovenia etc. It offers knowledge and understanding of religion and human
experience and does not form confessionally oriented
devotees[109].
This alternative has been actively discussed in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. While in Serbia there exists confessional education
for 7 traditional (historic) religious communities, there is no solution to the
problem in Montenegro and Kosovo yet.
The
predominance of the static, the phenomenal side of the Christian teaching
(holidays, sacraments, saints, institutions, texts) over its moral spiritual
side is another debatable point in the textbooks on religion: how these
spiritual, language and ritual components of religion solve or help solve our
everyday spiritual emotional issues. Not just on the way man reveres God and
the Church, but on the specific help God and religion provide to man: to deal
with solitude, with fear of death, with the temptations of money and power,
with escape from oneself, often found in drugs, alcohol, suicide. In fact these
are the hope and expectation with which students, and not only they, connect
their approval for the introduction of religious education at school.
Prof.
S. Tomovich, Minister of Confessions of Montenegro
believes, that before one sets on learning and changing the world, one needs a
spiritual support to overcome the dramas in life, like the loss of loved ones,
to have hope, to become a better person; he believes one needs not history of
religion as a cold registration of facts, but religious spirituality and inner
harmony[110].
A 2004 sociological survey in
secondary school students in Kosovo titled: “Should
the subject of Religion be taught in schools in Kosovo?”
found that: the majority of students would like to know more about religion,
but the ways in which this should happen, are different. Those who accept the
necessity of studying religion at school expect that it would help them solve
their emotional problems and overcome such negative issues as alcohol and
drugs; the predominant opinion is that school studies must provide knowledge of
all religions with focus on their moral values, ie. with
that which unites them, not the dogmas and the rituals that divide them[111].
In response to such expectations, it would be useful to include in the
textbooks ideas and views of some of the significant religious philosophers
like M. Buber, N. Berdyaev,
F. Schleiermacher, who focus on this side of
religion.
Furthermore,
the edifying, lecturing style is quite tangibly present in the textbooks, in
contrast with the widespread in the written and media postmodern style of: “No
authorities”, ”Everyone has a right of choice and viewpoint”, “No privileged
viewpoint” etc.
The sociological survey on the social
opinion concerning above issue gives some light on the reasons for that: 46.7% of the interviewed accept that the
religious education should be realized by the family; 38.1% - by
the school; 10.6% - by the religious institutions.
80.5% give preference to the
optional subject on religion and to the teachers and
not to the theologians.
The subject “Religion” in
school should: give knowledge on religion as culture – 46.5%; form spiritual
values – 17.4%; form moral values – 15.5% / Sociological Agency ACCA “M”,
March, 1996/.
I think that some specific
features and even paradoxes of the religious education in some countries could
be understood within the framework of the inner and more differentiated
approach to the local religious profile.
*
Bulgaria is known for its good and peaceful
ethnic-religious model /especially in comparison with the ethnic-religious wars
in ex-Yugoslavia/, established here during the democratic changes. In Bulgaria
the line of cleavage in society since the start of reforms was not ethnic-based
but political, hence religious differences (especially between Orthodoxy and
Islam) never became a basis for mutual aggression and contention. The
prevalence of political strife over religious-ethnic differences is evident in
the divisions within the Orthodox
community itself.
The research on the
ethnic-cultural situation in Bulgaria, carried out by a team of sociologists,
ethnographers, demographers in 1994, reached very interesting conclusions in a
comparative analysis of religious changes among the main ethnic groups [112]:
1/The relations between Christians and Muslims in everyday life are relatively
peaceful and neighborly; 2/ The name-changing campaign of the Bulgarian Turks,
carried out by the Communist government in the 1980s created animosity between
ethnic groups in Bulgarian society, but such feelings are dying out; 3/ There are no fundamentalists here, neither
Islamic, nor Christian; neither religious, nor anti-religious; 4/ The younger generation is far more open to
contacts and cooperation with people from other ethnic communities or other
religions; 5/ Political groups and parties that attempt to play a trump using
nationalism are for the time being without any significant influence; 6/ Yet
there is an explosive potential in certain ethnic prejudices - especially
toward Gypsies - that are rather freely exploited by the press; there are also
certain conditions for ethnic tensions above the level of everyday life,
sometimes used by politicians; 7/ All these tendencies are cultural forms of
the tension between traditional,
collective identities and democratic, individualistic and pluralistic
values .
In general these
results were confirmed by the surveys,
realized in 1999-2000[113]
: the ethnic situation in Bulgaria is calm; the ethnic and religious
differences do not occupy the top ranks
as possible causes for conflict between the corresponding groups – only 34% of
the respondents indicate such reasons. My local study /interviews with people
from both ethnic groups, observation of the local political and cultural
process during 2003-2004 / of the ethnic-religious situation in town of Kubrat, characterized by large number of Bulgarian Turks
living here, confirms that conclusion too.
At the same time the
majority of Bulgarians do not favour rights that
institutionalize ethnic interests /and especially those of the Roma/ at the
cultural and national level.
Certain specific features in
the formation of religiousness and practice of religion among the Roma justify
the thesis that religion is a cultural bridge thrown by them, a positive sign
of goodwill and a striving to equality with the others. One of the basic proofs
of this is that they usually adopt the religion of the community in which they
live; where the society has more than one religion, they adopt the more
prestigious, the more authoritative one[114].
For instance, in Bulgaria
44% of the Roma identify as Orthodox Christians, 39% as Muslims, 15% belong to
various Protestant confessions, less than 1% are Catholics, and 0.5% practice
Judaism[115]. Thus this attempt at bridging the distance
proves to be not particularly successful: what is considered a bridge, a path
by the one side turns out to be unacceptable, is negatively viewed by the
others.
This
is one of the main reasons for the success of some Protestant churches among the Roma communities in the studied
countries[116]. They give the Roma a feeling of being
accepted, of being an equal part of the brotherhood, a way of associating that
is quite close to their temperament, through the medium of music and singing,
rather than incomprehensible preaching. The field research I realized in town
of Kyustendil in 2004 among the Roma supported that
observation.
But
this proves to also be a new line of distancing and alienation of the Roma from
the macro-society, inasmuch as there are negative feelings toward the so-called
sects. Thus the
ethnic-centric stereotypes on the one hand and the inertia of the
ethno-cultural model, the culture of poverty on the other, mutually determine
and enhance each other.
But this does not imply that
the responsibility for the future development of these mutual relations should
be divided equally between the two sides. The greater share of responsibility
for the direction of relations /rapprochement vs. confrontation/ falls to the
macro-society, which creates the social framework and psychological climate of
ethnic relations in society.
* * *
IV. Conclusion
1.
The analysis of the relations between
state and church in the legal sphere of these countries shows they are
gradually approaching the European standards in this field: separation of
religions from the state, freedom of religions, equality, tolerance[117]. This process has reached a different
stage of development in each of the studied countries. In Bulgaria this law is
working, although criticized on some points; in Macedonia a corresponding law
exists, but it is not completely viable in its regulation of the matter, for
important sections of it have been annulled by the Constitutional Court; a new
draft law is being prepared currently. In Serbia and Montenegro there is at
present a legal void in this sphere, for a draft-law has been prepared, but its
future will depend on the developments in the state status of Serbia and
Montenegro, a question that is yet to be resolved.
*
2.
Analysis
of the legal regulation of state-Church relations in these countries, whatever
the stage of development of their laws on religions, shows: a) trends toward
equality of the religions that were predominant until recently (the Orthodox
Churches) with other confessions, and the division of confessions into two
categories (for instance in Serbia and Montenegro, and in Macedonia), one of
which has certain legal advantages: a simplified registration procedure, the
right of religious education in the secondary schools (in Serbia); in Bulgaria
this preference is reserved for the Orthodox Church; b) decrease of the
role of the state as regulator of confessions, but also preservation of some
authority to exercise control, issue licenses and impose penalties, in
connection with which religious communities, human rights organizations and
political parties have appealed to the Constitutional Courts in Macedonia and
Bulgaria; 3) recognition of religious communities as legal subjects whose legal
status is currently being defined in Macedonia, while in Bulgaria it has
already been defined as that of “non-profit organizations”; 4) The financial
commitments of the state toward religions (return of nationalized property,
financial assistance) have been more clearly declared in the Bulgarian law,
while in the Macedonian and Serbian ones they are referred to in general as
something desirable.
*
3.
This slow and painful evolution is a result of the complex
situation of the legislator in the studied countries. He has to move between
the Scylla of European imperatives and standards, presented in the criticisms
by NGOs and by small religious communities, and the Charybdis
of internal political circumstances, mass attitudes, the real social authority
and social status of some of the religious communities, and xenophobic
attitudes. This is where the deeper meaning and philosophy of our analysis of
national legal texts lies; they are not only components of a universal, global,
and standardized legal universe, but are embedded in a specific social context
and the people involved, the balance between people generate the texts. Moreover,
even if the texts of the laws were to be literally adopted and copied from the
developed democratic countries, still the question of the application of these
texts would remain with so much the greater weight, the question of their
acceptance as an organic part of the respective culture.
*
4.
The overall legal philosophy of the laws
on religions in the studied countries can be characterized as ambiguous, trying
to combine and reconcile two principles: a) achieving European legal standards
of freedom, pluralism, equality, tolerance in the sphere of religion; b)
“restoring justice” or restoring the situation that existed in these countries
before the communist regime, an approach that has allowed some retreat from
these principles. With the overcoming of this “nostalgic” mentality, it will
become possible to further democratization of the legislature in this sphere.
*
5.
The more important elements of the
social-political context, whereby the regulations, from being formal legal
ones, are actually implemented, are the following: a) the ethno-confessional
synthesis that resulted from the post-communist disintegration, which is mostly
typical for Serbia and Montenegro, and for Macedonia; as this disintegration
process in Bulgaria was more political in nature, the ethnic-confessional
synthesis in this country does not have a powerful social resource; b) the
process of marginalization of and at times xenophobic
feelings toward the religious and ethnic minorities situated outside the
ethno-confessional collectivities, for instance toward new religious movements
and some Protestant Churches, toward the Roma (Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia),
occasional display of anti-semitism (in Serbia),
etc.; c) the most important factor that would make these potential dangerous
forms of behaviour a reality is the favorable
political climate that relies on the appeal to nationalism; a climate that in
the studied countries is greatly dependent on international factors.
*
6
The dominant religious subjects in these
countries (the Orthodox Churches) are in an ambiguous situation with regard to
the state and political sphere: a) being institutional elements of the as yet
unstable state identity (especially in the case of Macedonia and Serbia and
Montenegro), the state tends to support and give them preference in some
respects; b) being a possible institutional competitor of the political elite
when vying for influence over mass demands and moods, the elite is motivated to
limit the potential influence of the Church; the Churches are financially
dependent and internally divided (the division in the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church).
*
7.
It can be observed that the Orthodox Churches themselves in these
countries are dependent and not
autonomous with respect to the state and politics: a) in their competitive
situation as one religion among others, where some of the others might have a
richer and more effective experience of working in a democratic and pluralistic
environment, the kind of environment to which the Orthodox Churches are not
used; b) in matters of ownership, financing, religious education, which are
hard to achieve where civil society is underdeveloped; c) as concerns the
complicated situation of some Churches in their status among other Orthodox
Churches (Macedonia, Montenegro), and in controlling internal divisions and
schisms (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro).
*
8.
These
complicated and contradictory tendencies provoke ambivalent public valuations
and hopes concerning religious /and especially – confessional/ “revival”.
Feelings range from excessive expectations and entrusting religion with
important social functions, to accusations of loss of religious ideals - more
specifically, that religion remains enclosed in conservative clericalism
instead of performing its mission of spiritual and moral consolidation of
society. On the other hand, in some extreme forms of the synthesis between
religion and ethnos or religion and politics, religion seems to play a role
that is alien to it, but which is assigned to it due to the weakness and
immaturity of other social subjects and institutions such as the state,
political parties, secular ideologies, civil society. The development and
modernization of the latter will probably place religions and the Churches in
their specific place, that of forms of spirituality and social communion which,
in their various social activities, are guided by their own specific motivation
and ethos.
*
9.
What is
religion? The answer of this question would
solve some of the above problems and would help the legal process
regarding the identification of the
religious organizations: the criteria for registration as religious community; the
reason for granting specific rights; the differentiation between religious and
quasi-religious groups, etc. But that answer is not within the competence of a
state, of a scientist, of a commission. It requires united and global work
of humanitarians, religious and legal
studies specialists, religious leaders, etc.
*
10.
All these processes show that the
democratization of the religious sphere in the studied countries is difficult
and involves collisions in a way that reflects the overall complication in the
course of social-political and economic democratization of the respective
societies. This process is made even more complicated by the fact that the West
European mode of democratization of the religious sphere is also being revised
and innovated under the impact of globalization. The pressure of European legal standards, tools, and
practices as a fundamental framework of values and motivation is an important
element of this necessary and difficult evolution. The success and future of
the frail buds of democracy in the delicate sphere of religion, will depend on
the future of the European Union.
* * *
[1] Horvat,V.Church in Democratic Transition between the State and the Civil Society, in: Religion in Eastern Europe, XXIV, April 2004
[2]Shmid, K. In the Name of God? The Problem of Religious and non-Religious Preambles to State Constitutions in Post-atheistic Contexts, in: Religion in Eastern Europe, vol. XXIV, N1, February 2004
[3] Ibid.
[4] Bloß, L. European Law of Religion –
organizational and institutional analysis of national systems and their
implications for the future European Integration Process, Jean Monnet Working Paper 13/03, in: www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/03031301.rtf
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid., p.16
[7] See: Movellan, A. La iglesia catolica y otras religions en la Espana de hoy, Madrid, 1999, pp.36-67; Bloß, L. European Law of Religion – organizational and institutional analysis of national systems and their implications for the future European Integration Process, Jean Monnet Working Paper 13/03, pp.29-35
[8] Obolensky, D. The Byzantine Inheritance of Eastern Europe, London, 1982, p.17
[9] Kolaric, I. Harismarhija Nemanjica (Charismarhia of the Nemanjic Dinasty). In: Socioloski pregled (Sociological Review) 30 /4, 1996, pp. 527-535,( Belgrade)
[10]Radic, R. Serbian Orthodox Church and the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In: Religion and the War in Bosnia, ed. by P.Mojzes, 1998, ( The American Academy of Religion.), p.166
[11]Djordjevic, D. Serbian Orthodox Church, the Disintegration of Second Yugoslavia, and the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Religion and War in Bosnia, ed. by P. Mojzes, (The American Academy of Religion), 1998, p.155
[12] Dimitrova, N. Opiti za nazionalnoculturna samoidentificazija na bulgarina (Attempts at a National-Cultural
Self-Identification of the Bulgarian). In:
A. Krasteva, N. Dimitrova,
N. Bogomilova, I. Katzarski.
Universalno i nazionalno v bulgarskata cultura (Universal and National in Bulgarian Culture),
1996,pp.91-93 (Sofia: ICMSIR).
[13] Lalkov, M. Njakoi mitove v Novata Balkanska istorija /Some Myths in the New Balkan History/, In: Istorija I mitove / History and Myths/, 1999 (Sofia), p. 36
[14] Stanimirov, S.. Istorija na Bulgarskata Tzarkva /The History of the Bulgarian Church/, Sofia, 1925, pp.141-142
[15] Dimitrova, N. Opiti za nazionalnoculturna samoidentificazija na bulgarina (Attempts at a National-Cultural Self-Identification of the Bulgarian). In: A. Krasteva, N. Dimitrova, N. Bogomilova, I. Katzarski. Universalno i nazionalno v bulgarskata cultura (Universal and National in Bulgarian Culture), 1996,pp.70-80 (Sofia: ICMSIR).
[16] Emmert, Th. Kosovo: Development and Impact of a National Ethic, in: Nation and Ideology, 1981, New York, p.83
[17] Bashich, G. Pravni polozaj crkava i verskih zajednica u Srbiji /The Legal Status of the Churches and of the Religious Communities in Serbia /, a part of the project of the Institute for Social Theory and Philosophy entitled “Drustveno razvojne mogucnosti Srbije u evropskim i svetskim procesima” /N 1926/ , MNTR Vlade Republike Srbije “ /The Social Development of Serbia and the Global Processes”, N 1926/,in Serbian, unpublished
[18] Ibid; http://www.gov.yu/document
[19] Official Gazette of Serbia and Montenegro, N 6,February 28, 2003; http://www.gov.yu
[20] Detailed analysis of the problem in: Aleksov, B . The Religious Education in Serbia. YUNIR, Nis, 2004 /bilingual – Serbian and English/; Djordjevic, D, D.Todorovic. Ìëàäè, ðåëèãèjà, âåðîíàóêà /The Youth, the Religion, the Religious Education/, Belgrade, 2000 /in Serbian/
[21]Ïðåäëîã çàêîíà î âåðñêîj ñëîáîäè, â: Ïðàâîñëàâëüå , N847, 1 þëè, 2002, Áåëãðàä / Law of Religious Freedom /draft/, in: Orthodoxy , N847, July 1, 2002/ In Serbian/
[22] Vukomanovich, M. Religious Freedoms in Yugoslavia and the Relations between Religious Communities and the State, in: Religion in Eastern Europe, vol.22, N1, February 2002, p.38
[23] Ibid
[24] Ibid, p.39
[25] Ibid., p.41
[26] Ibid.,
[27] Ibid.,p.42
[28] G.Bashich. The Legal Status of Churches and of the Religious Communities…
[29] Áîjuh, M. Óìåñòî çàêîíà î âåðñêîj ñëîáîäè – çàêîí î öðêâè, â: Ïðàâîñëàâëüå , N847, 1 þëè, 2002, Áåëãðàä / The Law of Religious Freedom should be Replaced by the Law of Church, in: Orthodoxy, N847, July 1, 2002, Belgrade /, in Serbian
[30] Basich, G. The Legal Status of Churches and of the Religious Communities…
[31] Zrinscak, S. Church and State in New Social Circumstances. The Croatian Story, in: Church-State Relations in Central and Eastern Europe, ed. by I. Borowik, NOMOS, Krakow, 1999, pp.124-129
[32] Bashich, G. The Legal Status of Churches and of the Religious Communities…
[33] I obtained in time the text of the Draft thanks to the collegial help of Prof. M. Vukomanovich
[34] Ilic, A. Church and State Relations in Present-Day Serbia, In: Religion in Eastern Europe, vol.25, February 2005, p.18
[35] Enyedi, Z. The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary In: John Madeley and Zsolt Enyedi (eds.) Church and State in Contemporary Europe. The Chimera of Neutrality. London: Frank Cass, 2003,
[36] Bjelajac, B. Discriminatory religion bill, in: www.Forum18.org, Forum 18 News Service, July 30, 2004
[37] www.Forum18.org, August 5, 2004
[38] Ibid.
[39] www.Forum18.org, Serbia and Montenegro, August 5, 2004
[40] I obtained in time the text of the Draft thanks to the collegial help of Prof. M. Vukomanovich
[41] Ferrari, S. Remarks on the papers presented at the Strasburg meeting /November 17-18, 2000/, in: The Status of Religion Confessions of the States Applying for Membership to the European Union, Ed. F.Messner /Proceedings of the Meeting/, Milano, 2002, p.29
[42] Interviews: May 16, 2005, University of Novi Sad, Serbia and June 19,2005, Sirogijno, Serbia
[43] Brankovic, T. Problems of defining religious organizations. A report presented at the International conference “Religion in the Multiethnic and Multi-confessional Society”, Novi Sad, Serbia, May 16, 2005 /, unpublished
[44] Ibid.
[45] Ferrari, S. Remarks on the papers presented at the Strasburg meeting /November 17-18, 2000/, in: The Status of Religion Confessions of the States Applying for Membership to the European Union, Ed. F.Messner /Proceedings of the Meeting/, Milano, 2002; W.Cole Durham, Jr., N.P.Peterson and E. A. Sewell, Introduction: A Comparative Analysis of Religious Associations Laws in Post-Communist Europe, in: Laws on Religion and the State in Post-Communist Europe, PEETERS, 2004, Eds. W.Cole Durham, Jr, Silvio Ferrari; Ferrari, S. Conclusion. Church and State in Post-Communist Europe, in: Law and Religion in Post-Communist Europe, eds. S. Ferrari, W. Cole Durham, Jr.; ed. E. A. Sewell; Peeters, Leuven, Paris, Dudley, M.A. 2003; Bloß. L. European Law of Religion – organizational and institutional analysis of national systems and their implications for the future European Integration Process, Jean Monnet Working Paper 13/03, in: www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/03031301.rtf
[46]Vukomanovich, M. The Role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Protection of Minorities and “Minor” Religious Communities in the FR Yugoslavia, in: Facta Universitatis, vol.2, N6, 1999, University of Nis, p.19; Kuburich, Z. Rasprostranjenost i polozai protestantizma na Balkanu,- Etno-religijski odnosi na Balkanu, Yóíèð, Nis, 1997 /Diffusion and Position of the Protestantism in the Balkans, in: Ethnic-Religious Relationships in the Balkan, YUNIR, Nis, 1997 /, in Serbian; Nikolich, Z. Religioznost u pravoslàvnim podrucjima. - Etno-religijski odnosi…/ Religiosity in Orthodox Areas, in: Ibid./; Beshich, M. and B. Djukanovich. Áîãîâè è ëüóäè. Ðåëèãèîçíîñò ó Öðíîj ãîðè, Ïîäãîðèöà, 2000, ÖÈÄ è ÑÎÖÅÍ è äð. / The Gods and the People. The Religiosity in Montenegro, Podgorica, 2000/, pp. 210-213, in Serbian; Roma Religious Culture, ed D. Djordjevich, YUNIR, Nis, 2003, and others.
[47]Blagojevich, M. Ðåëèãèjñêà ñèòóàöèjà ó ÑÐ Jóãîñëàâèjè îä êðàjà 80-òèõ äî ïî÷åòêà íîâîã âåêà. – â: Òåìå N3, 2003, Nèø, ñ. 412 / The Religious Situation in the UR Yugoslavia from the End of the 80-s to the beginning of the New Century, in: Teme, N3, 2003, University of Nis, p. 412 /, in Serbian
[48] Ibid., p.414
[49] Blagojevich, M. The Religious Situation in the UR Yugoslavia from the End of the 80-s to the beginning of the New Century, in: Teme, N3, 2003, University of Nis, p. 415 /in Serbian/
[50] Ibid., p. 416
[51] Vukomanovich, M. Religious Freedoms in Yugoslavia and the Relations between Religious Communities and the State, in: Religion in Eastern Europe, vol.22, N1, February 2002, p.422;
[52] Ibid.
[53] M. Blagojevich. The Religious situation…., p.416
[54] Ibid., p.424
[55] Beshich, M., B.Djukanovich. The Gods and the People. The Religiosity in Montenegro, Podgorica 2000, pp. 222-223
[56] D.Radisavljevich-Ciparizovich. Ðåëèãèjà è ñâàêîäíåâíè æèâîò, – â: Òåìå ¹ 1-2, 2005
/The Religion and the Everyday Life, in: Teme, 1-2, 2005/, pp. 41-55, in Serbian
[57] Enyedi, Z. The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary In: John Madeley and Zsolt Enyedi (eds.) Church and State in Contemporary Europe. The Chimera of Neutrality. London: Frank Cass, 2003
[58] Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. Human rights and responsibility. Serbia 2003., Belgrade, 2004, p.63 /in Serbian/
[59] Ibid., p.63
[60]Djurovich, B. Canonic Disputes or Clerical-political Proselytism: Relations between Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin Orthodox Churches in: Evangelization, Conversion, Prozelytism, ed. by D.Todorovich, YUNIR, Nis, 2004, p.59
[61] Ibid.
[62] Aleksich, B., T.Krstajich. Òðãîâöè äóøàìà /Traders in Souls, documents/, Nikshich, 2003, pp.103-125
[63] Ibid., pp. 99, 130, 133-135, etc.
[64] Îáðàçîâaíüå è âàñïèòàíüå N1-2, 1999, Ïîäãîðèöà /Åducation and Instruction, N1-2, 1997, Podgorica/, In Serbian/
[65] Vukomanovic, M. The Role of
the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Protection of Minorities and “Minor”
Religious Communities in the FR Yugoslavia, in: Facta
Universitatis, vol.2, N6, 1999, University of Nis, p.19
[66] Bigovich, R. Öðêâà è äðóøòâî, Áåîãðàä, 2000, ñ..259-260 / Religion and Society. Belgrade, 2000, pp.259-260/, In Serbian/
[67] Ibid., pp.265-266
[68] Ibid., pp.259-260
[69] Ibid., 273
[70] 2000 Annual report on International Religious Freedom in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor of the US Department of State, in: http://faq.macedonia.org/religion
[71] http://www.kovz.gov.mk/zakonski
[72] http://www.kovz.gov.mk/religrupi
[73] Nikolovski-Katin, S. Small Religious Communities and Groups in the Republic of Macedonia, in: Facta Universitatis, vol.2, N6,1999,University of Nis, pp .92-93
[74] Cacanoska, R. Íàöèîíàëíî-êîíôåñèîíàëíàòà äåçèíòåãðàöèjà íà ìàêåäîíñêîòî îïøòåñòâî, â: Óíèâåðçèòåò “Ñâåòè Êèðèë è Ìåòîäèj”, Ãîäèøíèê íà Ôàêóëòåòîò çà áåçáåäíîñò , 20/1 Ñêîïje, 2002, ñ.74 / National-Confessional Disintegration of the Macedonian Society, in: Annual Edition for the School of Security, 20/1, Skopie, 2002, p.74 /, in Macedonian
[75]Cacanoska, R. National-confessional disintegration…, p.74
[76] Ibid., p.75
[77] Mojzes, P. From Crisis to Post-crisis in Macedonia, in: Religion in Eastern Europe, vol.XXII, N4, August 2002
[78] Detailed analysis of the problem in: Sasaikovski,
S. Revitalizacija na opshtestvenata funkcija na religijata, versko-politichko soochuvawe so religiskiot fenomen, Doktorska disertacija - Skopje, 1998 godina / Revitalisation
of the Social Function of Religion and the Political Use of the Religious
Phenomenon /PhD thesis/, University “St. St.
Cyril and Methodii”, Institute for
Sociological, Political and
Juridical Studies”, Skopie,
1998 /, In Macedonian, unpublished
[79] Cacanoska, R. National-Confessional Disintegration of the Macedonian Society, in: Annual Edition for the School of Security, 20/1, Skopie, 2002, p.76 /in Macedonian/
[80] Djurovic, B. Canonic Disputes or Clerical-political Proselytism: Relations between Serbian, Macedonian and Montenegrin Orthodox Churches, in: Evangelization, Conversion, Proselytism, ed. by D.Todorovic, YUNIR, Nis, 2004, p.58
[81] Ibid.
[82] Ibid.,p.57
[83] Blagoev, G. Dramata ma Makedonskata pravoslavna tzarkva, v-k Trud, 8 Juli, 2004 / The Drama of the Macedonian Orthodox Church, in : the daily newspaper Trud, July 8, 2004 /, In Bulgarian
[84]Sasaikovski, S. Politicka sociologija na MPC / Political
Sociology of the MOC /, In Macedonian, unpublished
[85] Matevski, Z. Sociological Analysis of the Religious Situation in the Macedonian Post-Communist Society – report, presented at the International Conference “Religion and Politics” held at June 3-4, 2005 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria /in English, unpublished/
[86] Nikolovski-Katin, S. Small Religious Communities and Groups in the Republic of Macedonia, in: Facta Universitatis, vol.2, N6,1999, University of Nis, p. 98
[87] Cacanoska, R. Possibilities for Changes in Roma Confessional Matrix in the Republic of Macedonia, in: Evangelization, Conversion, Proselytism, ed. By D. Todorovic, YUNIR, Nis, 2004, pp. 84-86
[88] Interview, May 16, 2005, University of Novi sad, Serbia
[89] Interview, June 4, 2005, West-South University in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
[90] W.Cole Durham, Jr., N.P.Peterson and E. A. Sewell. Introduction: A Comparative Analysis of Religious Associations Laws in Post-Communist Europe, in: Laws on Religion and the State in Post-Communist Europe, PEETERS, 2004, Eds. W.Cole Durham, Jr, Silvio Ferrari
[91] www.parliament.bg
[92] State Gazette, 120/ December 20, 2002
[93] Petkov, P. The Law on Religion in Bulgaria in the Light of European Integration, In: Orthodox Christianity and Contemporary Europe, Eds. J.Sutton, Wil van den Bercken, PEETERS, Leuven, Paris, Dudley, 2003, pp. 486-489
[94] Religious Denominations Act / English version/, In: Laws on Religion and the State in Post-Communist Europe, Eds. W.Cole Durham, Jr., Silvio Ferrari, PEETERS, 2004, pp.77-92
[95] Peteva, J. The Legal Status of Church and Religion in the Republic of Bulgaria, in: The Status of Religion Confessions of the States Applying for Membership to the European Union, Ed. F.Messner /Proceedings of the Meeting/, Milano, 2002, pp.231-242
[96] Bogomilova, N. Religijata - Duh i Institutzija /The Religion – Spirit and Institution/, Academic Publishing House “Prof.M.Drinov”, Sofia, 1999, p.86 , in Bulgarian
[97] Interview, July 15, 2004
[98] Ferrari, S. Remarks on the papers presented at the Strasburg meeting /November 17-18, 2000/, in: The Status of Religion Confessions of the States Applying for Membership to the European Union, Ed. F.Messner /Proceedings of the Meeting/, Milano, 2002, p.29
[99] Brîun, J. The Schism in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Part 2: Under the Socialist Government, 1993 – 97, in: Religion, State, Society, vol.28, N3, 2000
[100] http://www.focus-news.net /July 22, 2004/; http://www.standartnews.com /July 22, 2004/
[101] The problems were
discussed at the conference of the
Bulgarian Legal Association, titled “Actual problems of the religious
communities in Bulgaria”, held on 13.07.2004 in Sofia
[102] W.Cole Durham, Jr., N.P.Peterson and E. A. Sewell, Introduction: A Comparative Analysis of Religious Associations Laws in Post-Communist Europe, in: Laws on Religion and the State in Post-Communist Europe, PEETERS, 2004, Eds. W.Cole Durham, Jr., Silvio Ferrari, pp.VII-XLIII
[103] Bulgaria: International Religion Freedom Report 2004, released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, in: http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2004/35446.htm
[104] www.nsi.bg/census/religion
[105] Vladimirov, Zh., I. Katzarski, Ì. Badzhakov, Ò. Òîdorov. Bulgaria in the Circles of Anomie, Sofia: SOPHILOS, 1998, p.58 /inBulgarian/
[106] M.Tomka. Tendances de la religiosité et de l’orientation vers les Eglises en Europe de l’Est. In: Social Compass, vol. 49, N4, 2002, pp. 540, 544-545, 547.
[107] Zhelev, I. The Orthodox Theology in the Contemporary World – VI-th Congress of the Higher Theological Schools, in: Church Journal, 1-15.X.2004 /summary of the report/
[108] Peteva, J. The Legal Status
of Church and Religion in the Republic of Bulgaria, in: The Status of Religion
Confessions of the States Applying for
Membership to the European Union, Ed. F.Messner
/Proceedings of the Meeting/, Milano, 2002
[109] Kodelja, Z.,T.Bassler. Religion and Schooling in Open Society, Ljubljana, 2004, Open Society Institute
[110] Îáðàçîâàíüå è âàñïèòàíüå /Education and Instruction/ N4, 1997, Podgoritza, in Serbian
[111] Rogova,V. Kosova, in: Z. Kodelja, T.Bassler. Religion and Schooling in Open Society, Ljubljana, 2004, Open Society Institute, p. 46-47; Basdevant-Gaudemet, B. Education et religion dans les pays candidates a l’Union Europeenne, in: Le statut des confessions religieuses des etats candidates a l’Union Europeenne, ed. F.Messner, Milano, 2002
[112] Mitev, P. Relations of Compatibility and Incompatibility in the Everyday Life of Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria. In: Relations of Compatibility and Incompatibility between Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria, ed. International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations/ ICMSIR/, Sofia, 1994, pp.180-189
[113]Vladimirov, Zh., I. Katzarski, T. Todorov, M. Badzhakov. 2000. Bulgaria after 1997: Current Situation and Development Tendencies. Sofia: Sofiiski Novini Edition, 2000, pp.89-92
[114]Marushiakova, E., V. Popov. Tziganite v Bulgaria /The Gypsies in Bulgaria/, Sofia: “M.Drinov” Academic Publishing House, 1993, p.,65
[115] Tomova, I.. The Gypsies in the Transition Period. Sofia: International Center for Minority Studies and Inter-cultural Relations /ICMSIR/, 1995, p.25
[116] D.Djordjevich. Evangelization, Conversion, Proselytism: Example of Roma’s Protestantization, in: Evangelization, Conversion, Prozelytism, ed. D. Todorovich, YUNIR, Nis, 2004, pp.77-78; Cacanoska, R. Possibilities for Changes in Roma Confessional Matrix in the Republic of Macedonia, in: Ibid., pp. 84-86; Slavkova, M. The “Turkish Gypsies” in Bulgaria and their New Religious Identity, in: Ibid., pp.90-92
[117] Ferrari, S. Conclusion. Church and State in Post-Communist Europe, in: Law and Religion in Post-Communist Europe, eds. S. Ferrari, W. Cole Durham, Jr.; ed. E. A. Sewell; Peeters, Leuven, Paris, Dudley, M.A. 2003, p. 421.