Priests as freedom fighters

For months, Serbian citizens have been protesting against the
repressive regime of Aleksandar Vucic and the entire corrupt,
clientelist system developed or escalated under his rule. The protests
were initiated by the students of Serbian Universities, but they have
since evolved into a nationwide popular movement that refuses to align
with any of the established political parties —for good reason.

The Serbian Orthodox Church, the largest religious community in the
country, has been divided over these protests from the very beginning.
While the overwhelming majority of its bishops have chosen to remain
silent, there have been isolated voices within the episcopate both for
and against the protests. Students of the Faculty of Theology in
Belgrade have joined the protests, and individual theologians have
expressed their support as well. Patriarch Porfirije, the head of the
Church, has remained ambiguous. He has avoided openly supporting the
protests, under the pretext that the Church needs to remain above
societal divisions. However, through internal and informal channels of
communication, one gets an impression that he supports the students,
even if he may be too weak to publicly oppose the regime.

One of the few clerics who have openly spoken against the protests is
Bishop David of Kruševac, a city in central Serbia. In a text dated
February 9, 2025, using mostly complicated (and empty) phraseology and
quasi-theological arguments, he linked the protests and “neo-Orthodox”
theologians, accusing them of promoting “a different Orthodoxy” that
distorts and corrupts tradition. Before him, Irinej, Bishop of Novi
Sad (northern Serbia), criticized what he called the “Orthodox
Trilateral” — an alliance of (unnamed but hinted-at) theological
institutions from the US and Europe — as a “neo-Orthodox theological
international” (and nothing good was meant by this). 

Despite these and other pressures, the priests of the Kruševac
Cathedral demonstrated both initiative and courage, both freedom and
their Christian and human dignity. On February 27, they stepped out of
the church and, in front of the cathedral, greeted the protesters as
they marched through the streets of Kruševac. They gave them their
blessings and arranged for food and drinks to be placed along the
sidewalks for all participants.


To fully appreciate this act, one must understand how church
structures function in countries where Orthodoxy has been the dominant
and traditional faith. The Orthodox Church is organized as an
“episcopocentric” institution, meaning that local bishops wield
enormous power over priests in their diocese, with little to no
external oversight except in extreme cases. In other words, priests
are often at the mercy of their local bishop: if the bishop is a
reasonable and good person, priests are in a solid position, but if
the bishop is authoritarian, egotistical, or even psychotic,
effectively only God can help them. There are, although very few,
extraordinary bishops, who are competent, dedicated to the Church, but
also kind-hearted and hard-working people. These dioceses are known
among the priests and the laity as “paradise on earth.” 

The decision of the priests to support the protesters comes against
such backdrop. They organized spontaneously, they say “naturally”,
with initially only a few of them, later joined by others. Although
they would probably object to the term “self-management” or
“anarcho-syndicalist” (given that these terms come primarily from the
political vocabulary, and are mostly linked to atheistic and even
anti-religious contexts), their spontaneous organization, at their own
initiative, and against the backdrop of authoritarian ecclesiastical
context, resembles the self-managerial, or anarcho-syndicalist
organization (that the students themselves have implemented in their
own organization from the beginning of the protests). 

This anarcho-syndicalist mode of organization is not a novelty in the
Balkans. One should keep in mind the tradition of Yugoslav socialist
self-management, but also the even earlier tradition of traditional
Serbian village cooperatives. 

In the context of the Orthodox Church, there are historical reports of
anarcho-syndicalist organization of monks and priests in Russia, in
the aftermath of the February Revolution (1917), as a means of
reclaiming freedom from authoritarian church structures.
The decision of these priests to express their position—both as
Orthodox Christians and as citizens—in the situation when the
political views of their bishop, and his arrogant rhetoric, were
clearly expressed and known, is a brave act, a demonstration of
freedom, and a commitment to justice and basic human dignity. This act
can serve as an example for other priests to stand up in the name of
human freedom and dignity, to reject repression, hypocrisy and
corruption, and to challenge, non-violently, the despotic rule of both
the local political leaders and individual bishops. Practicing such
Orthodox Christian “anarchism” not only affirms their status as free
citizens but also upholds their identity as Orthodox Christians—people
of dignity, committed to freedom, justice, and, above all – love.

Source:
<https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/priests-as-freedom-fighters/>