The bishop reacted after the government of Montenegro said it wanted to pass a law that will declare all ancient property belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church built before 1918 as the state property, without offering any valid reason for this in the public interest, or eminent domain (defence, energy, infrastructure) or any compensation. (Allow me to refer to the Serbian Orthodox Church, regardless of the reader’s creed or personal convictions as “the Church” throughout this article.)
The reason for this radical move, legislators explain, is that this is cultural heritage was built by the Montenegrin people.
The Church in Montenegro owns around 700 churches and other holy places that were built over a range of eras from the 4th century AD onwards. A bishop from the area of present-day Montenegro took part in the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, where the Nicaean Creed, relevant to all Christians, was born.
The ancient Church in present-day Montenegro has two institutions that date back to it directly: the Roman Catholic Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church. These two institutions, regardless of their sometimes tense relations, have always respected each other’s property; archaeological evidence proves this.
Church property has been guaranteed protection by law since the Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 AD. This guarantee was since respected by the Byzantines, the early Slavic settlers, medieval Serbian rulers, the Ottoman Empire, the Venetian Republic, the French Empire under Napoleon, the Principality of Montenegro and then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia – all of which ruled here.
The first challenge to the Church’s property rights came from the communist regime that took power in Yugoslavia after World War II. But the Yugoslav communists were more willing to compromise their Marxist ideology than their more rigid Stalinist Soviet counterparts. They were more prone to respond to Western criticism – and showcase a “third way”.
They were respectful – relatively – of property rights. Since they allowed private citizens to own a place to live and property in order to earn a decent living, setting a maximum limit of 17 hectares per person, they also did not nationalise all the property of the traditional religious communities.
They confiscated property that could make religious institutions economically and politically powerful, like lands and commercial buildings.
But they left us our centuries-old holy shrines (the past was irrelevant in the new communist utopia), a little bit of land and living space for a few ministers and pastors who were brave or desperate enough to practice their vocations in conditions of total social exclusion.
The menace to society, the opium of the masses – organised religion – was contained. Their reasoning was: “They have enough to limp on with”, so their brand of communism was presented as being humane and moderate (usually to obtain more Western financial backing), until the old religions died off naturally – because who would need religion in the new communist paradise?
Their Soviet counterparts confiscated everything, because it was all built by the people – the proletariat. Ancient churches in the Soviet Union became museums while newer ones became many things: depots, schools or hospitals, and, to make a point, even abortion clinics.
Even today, in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the state owns the churches, which it leases out to politically favoured religious groups. Freedom of religion at work!
Unfortunately, the modern, otherwise pro-Western government of Montenegro cannot shake off its Stalinist roots as successfully as its predecessors. It needs total control.
Ostrog monastery, Montenegro. Photo: Wikimedia commons/Diego Delso
The communist paradise failed. But the party structure and the totalitarian party line remained, while organised religion didn’t die off or just limp into the 21st century. It became influential again, not because of its property, but because of its unbroken trustworthiness and the spiritual needs of its adherents, disillusioned with all the previous false promises and political dirt of the late-20th century.
The Church is not the most trusted institution in Montenegro because of its property but because it enjoys the confidence of the majority of the population.
It has never made false promises, the clergy have not got rich overnight, it hasn’t fixed elections, it hasn’t squandered public funds, it hasn’t ruined public companies, it hasn’t fired thousands of people, it has never taxed anyone to death, and it hasn’t created corruption. And it has always voiced what its adherents were thinking but were unable to express.
This has been the opinion of the majority of the population of Montenegro consistently over the past 30 years, in all the polls. The Church has stolen nothing, just received donations, as any non-profit would, and it has used them well for its mission.
Everything that was built and created over the centuries was freely donated to the Church. No slaves built either the churches or the mosques in this country.
That is the reason they are still standing. Working on holy shrines was deemed an honour, and still is. An ancient medieval custom dictated that paid workers working on holy shrines deserved double pay – in order to prevent bad feeling when building them. Sometimes, craftsmen volunteered their services – the stonemasons of the Cathedral of St Basil of Ostrog in Niksic, upon its completion, proudly announced that no one had even broken a finger during its construction.
Bishop Joanikije of Budimlja-Niksic. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The craftsmen of today also volunteer to build churches in cities and villages. It is done for the glory of God, for the benefit of everyone, for the salvation of the soul, for the health of the family, out of general, honest-to-God human goodness.
Who would ever do that for the corrupt, inefficient, second-generation crypto-Stalinist government? The clergy do not own church property, but they do have a duty to protect it and make use of it for the benefit of believers and all people of good will. If they failed to do that, they would lose all the trust entrusted in the Church.
Ecclesiastical property is a peculiar breed of property. It is almost never put on the market. If it is old, it requires significant maintenance, and is usually protected by regulations on the protection of monuments of culture. It almost never gets bought, sold or mortgaged; access is open to the public, almost all the time. It is shared and open to the public to such an extent that one can get the false impression that it is publicly owned … But it is still the private property of one of the world’s oldest non-profit institutions.
Montenegro today has a modern legal framework that protects private property with a body of laws harmonised with EU and international legal standards, like any other normal, non-communist country. Anyone who is interested can check the property registries of Montenegro.
The registers are open to the public and are detailed. There, one can find specific churches, monasteries, religious facilities, non-commercial facilities, land, buildings, sometimes with the status of “protected monument of culture” whose title holders are Church institutions like the Metropolitanate of Montenegro, the Diocese of Budimlje and Niksic and so on.
In recent years, there have been around 50 court cases and charges, usually politically motivated, as an innuendo towards the proposition of the draft law, trying to prove that the Church’s property is not actually the Church’s property on various grounds.
Not one case has ever been ruled in favour of the plaintiffs – various politically backed groups. Usually, the case is dropped. Not one case has ever worked its way up to the Supreme Court of Montenegro or the European Court of Human Rights because private property is protected by domestic laws in accordance with international standards.
However, this draft law aims to create a legal exception, potentially allowing arbitrary confiscation without compensation of ancient churches that are vaguely described as being “built by the people”. The officials assure us that we can keep them if we have proof of ownership (which we do), but why is the property register suddenly not proof enough?
For each property, the Church has valid deeds from the state. Why are these valid deeds, challenged in court many times, not valid any more as proof of ownership, when these property rights have been confirmed numerous times? Who will determine what was “built by the people” and was not Church property 101 years ago? It is obvious how flawed this logic is and how much room there is for arbitrary political decisions.
That is why Bishop Joanikije said that there are no rules. If property rights, demonstrably protected and respected over all these centuries, are not applicable to the most trusted and deepest-rooted legal personality in the country, there really are no more rules. Private property in Montenegro is not guaranteed any more in any way.
If Church property is not safe, what is there to prevent the government from confiscating a 50-metre-square apartment of a disobedient government employee, for example?
If Church property is not safe, how can this country be safe for any long-term investment? If the most credible domestic institution can be robbed by the government, why would any potential investor think that he/she won’t be robbed in future?
All it will take is to set a time period after which it will be possible to declare that it belongs to the people, for any reason. Everything is so rosy when investors bring investment to Balkan countries: jobs, quality of life, etc….
However, long-term investors in energy projects, mining, forestry and infrastructure need a degree of legal certainty that their investment, when it turns a profit in future, will not be confiscated, or that the state will not arbitrarily create laws that will prevent investors from enjoying their profit. If this law is passed, this certainty will not exist any longer.
If the most credible and most ancient organisation in the country cannot have this certainty, no one can. The same uncertainty applies to an average citizen of Montenegro for his/her two-bedroom apartment, to an expat with a leisure property on the seaside or in the mountains, to a business owner, as well as to a large multinational corporation.
That is why there are no rules anymore. Anyone familiar with the cornerstone document of the Anglo-Saxon world, fundamental to Western civilisation – the Magna Carta – understands this.
When thieves and burglars threaten your home, whether under guise of the government or not, the only natural thing to do is to take up arms to defend it. The Church, and especially its clergy, are bound by the divine commandments not to use arms, which restricts our options to the statement issued by our bishop.
In this context, his statement becomes the only reasonable answer to the challenge ahead. Any free person would defend his/her home. This has nothing to do with some unhealthy religious fervour. It is a matter of plain human decency in indecent times.
Without the sanctity of private property in Montenegro, the country, so successful in its integration processes, is diving into a Hobbesian nightmare of a natural state of war of everybody against everybody, where there are no rules and lives are indeed at stake.
The Revd Konstantin Dojic is a deacon of the Cathedral of St Basil of Ostrog in Niksic.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN. Copyright Project Syndicate. Not for republication.
