This research examines the relationship between migrations and the transformation of ethnic and religious identities through the lens of the United Methodist Church (UMC) in Banat. It highlights how sociopolitical and cultural factors have influenced membership fluctuations and the ethnic composition of local congregations from the early 20th century to the present. Through field research, the study reveals that local congregational identity is shaped by ethnic and demographic characteristics, particularly in musical expressions during services, and notes the interactions between the UMC and other religious communities.

The beginnings of the Baptist Church in Macedonia resulted from an administrative change from Congregationalism through M ethodism into Baptist in order to survive the immense contextual pressure, rather than as a result of Baptist mission. The hostility towards the Protestant missions in the newly formed Kingdom of Serbians, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) after W orld W ar I made the life of the churches in the south of the Kingdom hardly possible. Groups of believers from Skopje and Radoviš, seeking ways to survive, became Baptist in 1928 and in 1930, respectively, as the Baptists were mentioned in the Constitution as one of the faith groups that had equal rights. During the next forty-five years, the two churches struggled in the especially hostile environment toward the Evangelicals in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the Socialist Republic of M acedonia (part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia).

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU, 2011

A more massive migration of Chinese to Serbia can be traced back to the 1990s. The Chinese in Serbia represent the first generation of migrants who came out of economic reasons. This work deals with the role of their religious identity in the gathering of those members of the group who practice Baptist Christianity. Baptist Christians are a religious minority both in China and Serbia. Therefore, the members of this group represent a double minority: both in the reception country (religious and national) and in their own country, compared to the religious orientation of the majority of their fellow countrymen. Apart from this, their church services are marked by certain characteristics by which they can be distinguished from other Baptist groups. The role of the religious factor in the community's life is being viewed here, as well as the affirmation and making connections between the members. 1 This paper is the result of Project no 17027: Multiethnicity, multiculturalism, migrations-contemporary processes, financed by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Serbia.

2011

The beginnings of the Baptist Church in Macedonia resulted from an administrative change from Congregationalism through Methodism into Baptist in order to survive the immense contextual pressure, rather than as a result of Baptist mission. The hostility towards the Protestant missions in the newly formed Kingdom of Serbians, Croats and Slovenes (later renamed Yugoslavia) after World War I made the life of the churches in the south of the Kingdom hardly possible. Groups of believers from Skopje and Radovis, seeking ways to survive, became Baptist in 1928 and in 1930, respectively, as the Baptists were mentioned in the Constitution as one of the faith groups that had equal rights. During the next forty-five years, the two churches struggled in the especially hostile environment toward the Evangelicals in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and later in the Socialist Republic of Macedonia (part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). Introduction Missiology in the Balkans has been stro...

Working paper: Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, 2023

Introduction 2 Transnational Evangelical Networks in Serbia 3 Humanitarian Activities of Evangelical Communities in Serbia after the Disintegration of Yugoslavia 5 The Role of the Evangelical Diaspora 6 Conclusion 7

Europe as a Multiple Modernity: Multiplicity of Religious Identities and Belonging, edited by Martina Topić and Srdjan Sremac, 228–251.

Christianity in Serbia, 2022

The first Serbs arrived on the Balkan peninsula in the 6th cent. and inhabited the area of the central and western Balkans, the territory where a Christian population already lived. The first missionaries ('Elders of Rome') were sent there by the Byzantine Emp. Heraclius, but this attempt at Christianizing the Serbs was not successful, because of the language barrier and the distrust caused by political conflicts with these Christian imperials. The first remarkable results of the spread of Christianity among the Serbs occurred in the 9th cent., especially due to the brothers Cyril (c.827-69) and Methodius (c.815-85). They invented the first Slavic alphabet (Glagolitic, later replaced with the Cyrillic script) and translated the most important Christian books, thus making liturgical services in Slavic possible. Their work and their disciples were crucial for the second, more massive baptism of the Serbs (879) during the reign of Prince Mutimir (860-90).

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, 2016

Religion and Politics in Post-Socialist Central and Southeastern Europe: Challenges since 1989, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014

The Politics and Religion Journal, 2013

After World War II, multi-religious and multi-national socialist Yugoslavia faced the need to resolve the complex national issue or actually to bring it into accord and make closer to the internal, but also to the international goals and interests of the Yugoslav state. Its atheistic-secularist nature basically conditioned its relationship to the religious communities in the state, whose “potentials” should be controlled, directed and used in a desirable way. The state, actually, supported the secular (non-church) principle by which every nation should have its own Church, striving in time directly, consistently and firmly to exert influence on its application in practice as such. Taking such activities, it disregarded the church reasons and needs, what particularly made a negative impact on the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). The Roman Catholic Church (RCC), as the second church (religious) community in the country by the number of its believers, recognised that its interests coinci...

Glasnik Etnografskog instituta, 2014

The official name of the Methodist Church in Serbia is "Evangelička metodistička crkva" translated directly into English would be Evangelical Methodist Church. This Church is part of the worldwide denomination called "United Methodist Church" (UMC), so I use this term in the text.

2018

Though in size resembling a sect, the Methodists of the former Yugoslavia functioned as a Protestant “Free Church” due to its international structural connection with a large worldwide Methodist Church. After disparate beginnings in the two locations, the Methodist of Vojvodina began to function in 1898 while in Macedonia, the former Congregationalist (called Evangelical) began their work in 1870 but were transferred to the Yugoslavia Methodist Mission Conference after World War I. In Vojvodina, most of the members were of German and Hungarian ethnicity who had already been Protestants before they joined the Methodists while in Macedonia, the members were ethnic Macedonians, formerly Orthodox Christians. In both localities, they sporadically experienced harassment and unequal legal status. When Yugoslavia became a communist country after World War II, ironically they obtained equal legal recognition as the other religious communities, but experienced various levels of persecution th...

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, 2015

2018

Prior to the end of the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and during portions of World War I, the territory of Macedonia was served by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (hereafter ABCFM) with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The form of Protestantism promoted by ABCFM was Congregationalism but in the Balkans, they called their churches Evangelical, which is often used as a synonym for Protestants. After the end of World War I, the ABCFM was unable to continue to financially support and staff this mission field outside of Bulgaria as proper and turned their work in Macedonia (which had become part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, and later renamed Yugoslavia) to the Methodist Church, whose Board of Foreign Missions was located in New York, NY. The Congregationalists and Methodists have worked exceptionally harmoniously on the mission field in the Balkans, which was unusual among Protestants of that time. Due to the author's location in the United States at the time of writing the doctoral dissertation, it was not advisable for him to travel to Yugoslavia to do the field work. Therefore, he relied on the archives of the two churches plus materials supplied by his mother based on oral reports by local church members and pastors. The archives, naturally, contained mostly materials and reports written by the American missionaries and much less so by native pastors and church workers, hence the reader should be aware that the work by those native Protestants are underrepresented. The reader should also be aware that the American missionaries of that time were unaware of the existence of a Macedonian nationality and considered the Slavic population living at the time in European Turkey as Bulgarian. In order to faithfully reflect the nature of the original sources, I rarely departed from their conventional impressions. The American missionaries had limited contacts outside of their mission area. This author is convinced of the authentic and separate existence of a Macedonian nation and language. I also used the names of cities as used by the missionaries rather than their present names. I used a phonetic spelling of Balkan places and names in order to help English speakers pronounce it closer to the original. The reader will note an overabundance of details. When I wrote his dissertation A History of the Congregational and Methodist Churches in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia (Boston University, 1965) mostly during 1963 and 1964, it was not assured that these small churches in the two countries may survive the communist persecution and pressures. Therefore, I was eager to preserve their story for posterity. It is a great joy that my fears did not come true.

Echoes of Europe : Cultural Transfer Europe-Serbia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, 2025

The theory of cultural transfer usually includes the fields of intellectual history, literature, material culture, art, and science, but it can be applied no less fruitfully to the religious sphere, whether to the exchange and influence of religious ideas or religious practices. Religious transfers and the mobility of religious practices were explored in stand-alone studies, although religious transfer is usually seen as part of cultural transfer in the broadest sense of the word. This paper focuses on the emergence of European neo-Protestant missionaries, especially from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In the interwar period, Adventism was already established in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later Kingdom of Yugoslavia). Adventism’s roots in this region date back to the late 19th century, with the first Serbian-speaking believers appearing in 1901–1902 and the first church building erected in Kumane in 1905. Despite internal growth, the Adventists faced scrutiny from the SOC clergy and local authorities, particularly as their pacifist stance clashed with state expectations during the turbulent 1920s and 1930s. The Adventist community faced internal divisions influenced by the global schism that led to the formation of the Seventh-day Adventist Reform Movement. The chapter analyzes the emergence, development, and challenges of the Adventist religious movement in interwar Yugoslavia. It sheds light on how religious transfers impacted the socio-religious landscape of the period, focusing on Adventism’s growth, internal schisms, and external opposition. By examining the movement’s interactions with the Serbian Orthodox Church, state authorities, and other religious groups (such as the Nazarenes), the paper provides a nuanced understanding of how a neo-Protestant group navigated its position as a religious minority amidst political, cultural, and social complexities.

Biserko, Sonja (ed.), The Warp of the Serbian Identity, Belgrade: Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, 2016

(2016): “The Role of the Serbian and Russian Orthodox Churches in Shaping Governmental Policies”, in: Biserko, Sonja (ed.), The Warp of the Serbian Identity, Belgrade: Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia

Contemporary Migration Trends and Flows on the Territory of Southeast Europe, 2019

Considering two case studies, this article presents the functioning and attitude toward local religiosity in the context of migration. The first case study examines permanent internal migration of the Greek Catholics from the region of Žumberak in Croatia and the second one temporary labour migrants from ex-Yugoslavia, particularly from Eastern Serbia and Western Macedonia. Searching for answers to the questions of the migrants’ attitudes toward local religiosity, its role in the construction of identity and the impact of migration on it, we cannot but consider the “laws” to which these processes submit in social life.

2017

Studies in specifi c geographical contexts have shown that the spread of Pentecostalism’s infl uence on Roma communities is twofold: it is linked to social change, including a rise of education levels, literacy, decrease in crime, better relationships with the majority culture; and it is also instrumental in the fostering of a “trans-national” identity and revitalization of their respective Roma identities. However, Pentecostalism cannot be considered a formula that intersects with a Romani community with consequential predictable results— in fact, in Southeastern Europe, Romani Pentecostalism is growing at a much slower rate than that of its counterparts in Western Europe and in places such as Romania and Bulgaria. Further, in the language of researchers, NGOs, and the European Union, success is often measured in the appropriated terms of neo-liberal vocabulary: integration, development, and modernization. In view of these circumstances, through what lens and with whose vocabulary ...

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe, 2004

According to many anthropologists and sociologists, the collapse of communism and the emergence of a new nationalism in a number of post-communist countries resulted in a religious revival. In the post-communist period, in 1989/1990 in Romania and Serbia the number of those declaring themselves to be „believers” considerably increased. This religious growth also meant moving away from traditional forms to new ones. Focusing on conversion to neo-Protestantism in the post-communist era up to the present day, this article presents the results of ethnographic fieldwork conducted since 2008 in various Romanian villages in Vojvodina Province, Serbia. The article explores how different religious groups, such as Nazarenes, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals and Baptists, often stigmatized in public discourse, influenced religious change in the last decade. Even though these religious communities were already established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, they are often perceived as new forms of religiosity in the area, becoming more visible and numerous in the post-communist period, especially among ethnic minorities. In adressing these issues, this article explores the role of new religious identities that have emerged in the region, the historical continuity of neo-Protestant communities and the question of conversion to neo-Protestantism.

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