Orthodoxy in Serbia: between its public image and the everyday religiosity of its believers

Abstract

This article characterises and contrasts the most visible changes in the Serbian Church's public role with less visible and analysed trends among its believers. A very tight intertwining of the religious and the political elevated the Serbian Church's institutional position, secured an unprecedented construction boom, and even influenced some devotional practices of the faithful, especially through victimhood-oriented collective identity building. Yet our research demonstrates the ambiguous impact of these changes on believers, whose lives revolve around the liturgical cycle, fasting, and reverence for monasticism. These differences have already created rifts within the Church. In a trend that it is unrecognised by secular observers, it seems that some believers are increasingly differentiating between their ethnic and confessional identities.