Religious Education in Serbia

Abstract

"When the government of the Republic of Serbia decided to introduce religious education into state schools in 2001, Serbia came into line with the neighbouring countries, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where at the request of the dominant religious communities confessional religious education had been part of state school curricula ever since the dis- integration of the former Yugoslavia in 1991? In Serbia, religious education was introduced under chaotic circumstances, shortly after the democratic changes following 5 October 2000, to which it was directly linked. The previous regime of Slobodan Milosevic had rejected all initiatives seeking the introduction of religious education into state schools, in spite of the numerous concessions and policy changes toward the church made since the disintegration of Yugoslavia. Confronted as it was by the numerous challenges of tran- sition, the newly created ideological vacuum and the need to mitigate the radical nationalism that had marked Serbia in the 1990s, the new democratic government led by Zoran Dindic decided to introduce religious education in a calculated scheming attempt to ensure the sym- pathy of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). This decision provoked vehement reactions from the government's opponents, but its effects and consequences have not so far been the subject of any serious analysis. This paper is a pioneer venture in that direction."