As pressure mounts to oust Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian Orthodox church has moved beyond its preliminary criticisms of the indicted leader to outright appeals for opposition to his regime.
From village rallies to capital demonstrations of more than 100,000 protesters, Serbians are expressing their discontent over Milosevic's warfare with NATO and Serbia's resultant loss of Kosovo.
Patriarch Pavle, head of the Serbian Orthodox church, originally supported Milosevic, but in 1997, Pavle began to distance the church from him by blessing antigovernment rallies and criticizing his policies. Once Milosevic began his lethal pursuit of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, the church condemned the Serbian leader. Church officials also repeatedly spoke of Serbian culpability for the crimes committed against Albanians.
"This is a very important moment," sociologist Mirko Djordjevic told reporters in Belgrade, "because it fits into the ancient tradition of the church caring for the national conscience."
Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.
Our digital archives are a work in progress. Let us know if corrections need to be made.
Annual & Monthly subscriptions available.
- Print & Digital Issues of CT magazine
- Complete access to every article on ChristianityToday.com
- Unlimited access to 65+ years of CT’s online archives
- Member-only special issues
- Learn more
More from this Issue
Read These Next
- From the MagazineA Theological Monument to Unity amid DiversityFifty years ago, the Lausanne Covenant’s solution to rampant division in evangelical ranks wasn’t uniformity.
- Editor's Pick‘Are You Ready to Open Your Doors … And Your Toilets?’French evangelicals are working together to show people Jesus at 2024 Olympic Games.Français