Concern for the future of minority churches and religious bodies in Yugoslavia is being voiced throughout the country. “We are concerned about the future of the church in our country,” said Dr. Radisa Antic, president of the Yugoslav Seventh-day Adventist Church. “We sent a letter to the Federal Government asking the new leadership to treat all the churches and religious bodies in the country on equal terms and to give them equal status and rights before the law.”

The concern has intensified after the recent statement by the Serbian Orthodox Bishop Ignjatije of Branicevo, in charge of the newly-appointed church commission for the implementation of religious education in state schools, that religious education should be compulsory for all students. He said the parents who did not wish their children to participate could opt out by registering at the beginning of the school year.

As reported in the Keston News Service, some Protestant churches are expressing fear that “the content of the syllabus will not reflect their own beliefs or that those who opt out will be stigmatized.” Following a meeting with Bishop Ignatije, Bogoljub Sijacic, federal minister of religion, said that “religious classes are in the domain of human rights,” adding that “we should find an appropriate model for our multi-confessional country,” Keston reported.

Speaking on behalf of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Dr. Jovan Mihaljcic, secretary of the Adventist Church in the region and professor at Belgrade’s Adventist Theological Seminary, opposed compulsory religious education in schools. In an interview with Keston on December 12, 2000, he argued that “religious classes should not be obligatory for children of other confessions.”

“Although we are for religious education, we believe that the formation of a believer is the responsibility of the family and the church, not the state. Whenever a close relation exists between a church and the state, there is a clear danger that some other churches or denominations will be treated as second class churches. We believe that religious education is the responsibility of the religious communities, i.e., the churches,” he said.

Seventh-day Adventists operate their own program of religious education. School material had been available for eight elementary grades for Adventist children in Yugoslavia, and the church had been in involved in religious education for its children for quite sometime, according to Mihaljcic.

Some Protestants are saying that they cannot expect to have the same status as the members of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and if the religious education in schools will be found inadequate, there will be ways of expressing concern. Keston also reported that members of the Islamic community expressed support for religious education in schools, arguing that this would mean that Islam would be taught in areas with sizeable Muslim populations.

Dr. Antic said that “with the new democratic Federal Government in our country, the question of the place of different religious bodies on the political stage of the country is being raised.”

Several political leaders, Antic said,  are “prone to look at some minority religious bodies as less acceptable or as sects” and some openly “put themselves on the side of traditional religions, such as the Orthodox, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim.”

The latest development of concern surrounds a report in the public media on January 4 stating that the Orthodox Church was establishing chaplaincy services in the Yugoslav army.

“To read about such matters in the media was a surprise,” Antic said. “This is not a good development.”

The Adventist leader does not argue against the importance of army chaplaincy for Orthodox believers, but raises a concern that other religious bodies are being by-passed when such issues are discussed and determined, and when “we are being told by the state that churches and religions are equal before the law. Naturally we are interested in being also treated as such,” Antic concluded.