Legal framework on freedom of religion and actual application
Article 11 of the Serbian Constitution provides that “no religion shall be established as a state or mandatory religion”. Article 21 guarantees equality before the law, equal protection, and prohibits discrimination on the grounds of religion. Article 43 guarantees freedom of thought, conscience, beliefs, and religion, including the right to convert. Everyone may manifest religious beliefs in public or private, as well as in worship, practice, and teaching alone or in community with others, and may not be restricted except to protect “lives and health of people, morals of democratic society”, constitutional rights of others, public safety, or to prevent incitement.
Article 44 governs Churches and religious communities, which are equal before the law and free or govern themselves, establish and run religious schools, and organise their own activities. Activities may only be restricted for the protection of others or if they incite intolerance. Incitement to religious inequality or hatred is prohibited and punishable (Article 49). Conscientious objection to military service is protected (Article 45).
The Law on Churches and Religious Communities governs but does not require the registration of Churches. Registration makes Churches eligible for favourable tax treatment (Article 30), enables them to teach religion in schools (Article 36), to own and construct property (Articles 26 and 32), and receive state funding (Article 28). It recognises seven “traditional” Churches and religious communities that have centuries of historical continuity in Serbia: the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Slovak Evangelical Church, the Reformed Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church, the Islamic community, and the Jewish community.
Article 18 of the Law on Churches and Religious Communities outlines the registration application procedure for religious communities: the application must include a description of the basic religious teaching, rites, goals, and activities of the organisation, data on sources of income, organisational structure and documents, and the names and signatures of at least 0.001 percent of the Serbian population who are adults and citizens or permanent residents of the country. The law prohibits registration if the group’s name includes part of the name of an existing registered group (Article 19).
Religious education in schools by the “traditional churches and religious communities” is governed by law. Students must either attend religious instruction or civics education. For primary school students, the parents choose which instruction to receive; in secondary school, the students decide for themselves. Religious instruction is taught by priests and laypersons who are selected by the Churches and religious communities and appointed and paid by the Ministry of Education.
According to the Directorate for Cooperation with Churches and Religious Communities, as of 2020 there were 25 “nontraditional” religious groups registered with the government.
According to the finance ministry, Serbia issued in 2022 restitution bonds worth 69.5 mln euro ($79.3 mln) worth of five-year, 10-year, and 12-year bonds meant to cover court-approved property restitution claims, the finance ministry said. It was also reported that only six percent of the land remains to be returned to Church communities and citizens, which is now in the possession of the state.
In relation to property restitution to religious communities, in 2006 Serbia passed the Law on Restitution of Property to Churches and Religious Communities seized after 1945; nearly half of claims were served within a ten year period. Serbia also enacted the Law on Property Restitution and Compensation in 2011, enabling a natural restitution or compensation to heirs of the property (immovables and certain movables) seized after 1945 and owned by the Republic of Serbia, municipalities and state-owned companies. The government does not keep records noting the religious or ethnic affiliation of claimants under this law.
In February 2016, following Terezin declaration, Serbia enacted The Law on Elimination of the Consequences Made by Confiscation of Property of Holocaust Victims Who Have No Legal Descendants. Contrary to the Terezin declaration, this law, by establishing only one religious and racial community as an exclusive victim of the German Nazi crimes, created an unprecedent privileged situation for one religious community over others also persecuted at that time i.e., the Roma community or Christians. The law transfers to the Serbian Jewish community, estimated at 3,300 members and represented by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Serbia (Savez Jevrejskih Opština Srbije), an overall sum of €24 million of compensation over the course of the next 25 years and 20 percent of total proceeds to Serbia’s Holocaust survivors domestically and abroad for at least 10 years.
Incidents and developments
84.6 percent of Serbian’s adhere to Christian Orthodoxy making it the largest religious community, around 5 percent observe Catholic religious beliefs and less than one percent identify with other Protestant groups. Serbia also has a small but significant Islamic population with just over three percent of the population identifying as Muslim.
On 9 May 2022, the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, headed by Patriarch Bartholomew, recognized the Macedonian Church and entered into Eucharistic communion with its clergy. Building on this, on 24 May 2022 in Skopje, Patriarch Porfirije, the head of Serbia’s Orthodox Church, recognized the independence of the Orthodox Church in North Macedonia signalling an end to a religious dispute dating back more than 50 years.
Earlier in the year, however, Serbian Patriarch Porfirije called the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine “a violation of the canons” and he called on Serbian hierarchs and clergymen to refrain from liturgical and canonical communion not only with clerics of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, but even to those clerics who con-celebrate and enter into communion with them. Serbian Orthodox Church leaders accused the Patriarch of Constantinople of encouraging a schism by confirming Ukrainian Church independence.
The OSCE Mission to Serbia reported four anti-Semitic incidents in 2021 (private and community property damage), four violent incidents with a religious bias against Jehovah’s Witnesses (mostly property damage) and three violent incidents against Muslims (one physical assault and two acts of vandalism/desecration in mosques).
Serbia’s Muslims, mostly inhabitants of the Muslim-majority region of Sandzak bordering Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, are split in two competing communities: the Islamic Community of Serbia (Islamska zajednica Srbije, IZS) and the Islamic Community in Serbia (Islamska zajednica u Srbiji, IZuS). These divisions facilitate competing Islamic expansionist ambitions evident between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran in the Balkans as a gateway to Europe. In January 2022, the international Islamic Fiqh Academy’s (IIFA) in Saudi Arabia signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Prof. Enver Gicic, Dean of the Faculty of Islamic Studies of the Republic of Serbia. In November 2022, Egypt’s ambassador to Belgrade, Bassel Salah, met with Serbia's Grand Mufti Sheikh Mustafa Yusuf Spahic, in which it was agreed that Cairo will send religious envoys to the south eastern European country to provide Serbian Muslim students the opportunity to study at Egypt's prestigious Al-Azhar University. This trend is anticipated to continue following meetings and goodwill declarations to bilateral relations between Serbia and Pakistan, UAE, as well as Iran.
Prospects for freedom of religion
There were no significant restrictions on religious freedom in Serbia. The prospects for the right to religious freedom remain positive.
Serbia