TheEastern Orthodox Church is the most widespreadChristian denomination inBosnia and Herzegovina and the second most pervasive religious group in the country, followingIslam and followed in turn byCatholicism. Eastern Orthodox Christians in Bosnia and Herzegovina mostly belong to theSerbian Orthodox Church. According to the 2013 census, there were 1,089,658 adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy or the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina, making up 30.86% of the population.

The end of theHigh Middle Ages saw Eastern Orthodoxy firmly establish itself – in the form of the Serbian Orthodox Church – in the east ofHerzegovina, namelyZachlumia, following a period of rule by theKingdom of Serbia.^[1] Zachlumia was conquered by Bosnian banStephen II Kotromanić in the late 1320s and was henceforth part of theBanate of Bosnia (laterkingdom), in which the Roman Catholic Church and the indigenousBosnian Church vied for supremacy. In this political climate, the Eastern Orthodoxy never seems to have penetrated the medievalBosnia proper beyondPodrinje.^[1][2]

TheOttoman conquest of the Kingdom of Bosnia in 1463 led to drastic changes in the confessional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Islam taking root and Orthodox Christianity spreading into Bosnia. SultanMehmed the Conqueror vowed to protect Orthodox Christianity and, like all Orthodox churches, the Serbian Orthodox Church enjoyed tremendous support from the Ottoman state. The Ottomans introduced a sizeable Orthodox Christian population into Bosnia proper, includingVlachs from the eastern Balkans. The conversion of the adherents of the Bosnian Church also aided the spread of Eastern Orthodoxy. Later, areas abandoned by Catholics during theOttoman–Habsburg wars were settled with Muslims and Orthodox Christians.^[1] The Ottoman regime consistently favored the Orthodox Church over the Catholic and encouraged conversions of Catholics to Orthodoxy due to political expediency: while the entire Orthodox hierarchy was subjected to the sultan, the Catholics were suspected of conspiring with their brethren outside the Ottoman Empire.^[2]

While Bosnian Catholics were only allowed to repair existing sacral objects, a large-scale construction of Orthodox monasteries and churches throughout Bosnia started in the northwest in 1515. An Orthodox priest was present inSarajevo already in 1489, and the city'sfirst Orthodox church was constructed between 1520 and 1539. By 1532, Bosnian Orthodox Christians had their ownmetropolitan bishop, who took up official residence in Sarajevo in 1699. By the end of the 18th century, the Metropolitan of Bosnia had authority over the Orthodox bishops ofMostar,Zvornik,Novi Pazar and Sarajevo. Even the high-ranking Orthodox clergymen, however, were very poorly educated and corrupt; they were reportedly ignorant of the basic principles of the faith, such as theTen Commandments,confession, prayers and the importance of thecross.Syncretism was widespread among the Bosnians, with Catholics (as late as the 1880s) and Muslims celebrating the Orthodoxslava.^[1]

The tide eventually turned against the church, however, when Orthodox clergy renounced loyalty to the sultans and started encouraging and aiding peasant rebellions. The Ottomans abolished theSerbian Patriarchate of Peć and, from the late 1760s until 1880, the Orthodox in Bosnia and Herzegovina were directly under theEcumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. As such it was led byPhanariotes,Greeks fromIstanbul. In the mid-19th century, there were more than 400 Orthodox priests in Bosnia and Herzegovina; it was a time of renewed prosperity for the country's Eastern Orthodoxy.^[1] In 1920, following theFirst World War and the creation of theKingdom of Yugoslavia, the area again came under the religious authority of the newly reunited Serbian Orthodox Church, underPatriarch Dimitrije.

According to the 2013 census, there were 1,089,658 adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy or the Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina, making up 30.86% of the population.^[3][a]

Most of those following Eastern Orthodoxy were ethnically Serbs, 1,076,807 or 98.82% of the Eastern Orthodox population. They were followed by a group that chose regionalBosnian identity, comprising 1,929 or 0.18% of the Eastern Orthodox population. The rest falls on other ethnicities, with 1,945 or 0.18% of the Eastern Orthodox population choosing to remain undeclared or of unknown ethnicity.^[3]

Five eparchies (dioceses) of the Serbian Orthodox Church cover the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina:

• Metropolitanate of Dabar and Bosnia, headed by metropolitanHrizostom Jević, since 2017.^[4]
• Eparchy of Zahumlje and Herzegovina, headed by bishopDimitrije Rađenović, since 2018.
• Eparchy of Zvornik and Tuzla, headed by bishopFotije Sladojević, since 2017.^[4]
• Eparchy of Banja Luka, headed by bishopJefrem Milutinović, since 1980.
• Eparchy of Bihać and Petrovac, headed by bishopSergije Karanović, since 2017.^[4]

Regional Council of Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina consists of all five diocesan bishops. The Council is presided by theMetropolitan of Dabar and Bosnia.

• Serb Orthodox Cathedral (Sarajevo)
• Sarajevo Old Orthodox Church
• Church of Sveto Preobraženje
• Tavna (monastery)
• Tvrdoš (monastery)
• Žitomislić (monastery)
• Religion in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Catholic Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina

• Bataković, Dušan T. (1996).The Serbs of Bosnia & Herzegovina: History and Politics. Dialogue Association.ISBN 9782911527104.
• Ćirković, Sima (2004).The Serbs. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.ISBN 9781405142915.
• Ethnicity/National Affiliation, Religion and Mother Tongue(PDF). Sarajevo: Agency for Statistics of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2019.
• Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1991) [1983].The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.ISBN 0-472-08149-7.
• Fine, John Van Antwerp Jr. (1994) [1987].The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.ISBN 0-472-08260-4.
• Mileusnić, Slobodan (1997).Spiritual Genocide: A survey of destroyed, damaged and desecrated churches, monasteries and other church buildings during the war 1991-1995 (1997). Belgrade: Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
• Špoljarić, Luka (2019)."The Renaissance Papacy and Catholicization of the Manichean Heretics: Rethinking the 1459 Purge of the Bosnian Kingdom".Global Reformations: Transforming Early Modern Religions, Societies, and Cultures. London & New York: Routledge. pp. 153–175.
• Velikonja, Mitja (2003).Religious Separation and Political Intolerance in Bosnia-Herzegovina. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.ISBN 978-1-60344-724-9.

• Eastern Orthodoxy in Bosnia and Herzegovina
• Serbian Orthodox Church in Bosnia and Herzegovina

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