The board of the Patras branch of Institute for National and Religious Affairs (INRA) is calling for an immediate solution to the crisis within the Montenegrin Orthodox Church.
In particular, in its resolution, the board pointed out that the new law passed by the Parliament of Montenegro on religious freedom and legal status of religious communities whipped up a hurricane of protest. The law provides for the nationalization of assets of religious communities which cannot prove that they owned their property before 1918, when the Kingdom of Montenegro was united with the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
The Serbian Orthodox Church will face the biggest problem in the implementation of this law, which, according to the Patriarchal and Synodic Tomos of 1922, has jurisdiction over the area.
The Patras branch of INRA pointed out that “this law aims to seize property, that is, temples and monasteries, owned by the canonical Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and to transfer them to the self-proclaimed ‘Montenegrin Orthodox Church’, which is schismatic and is not recognized by the other Orthodox Churchs in the world.”
The Institute finally wondered whether “each government can bring in laws that deprive the centuries-old religious communities of their property? Or are there any new geopolitical games hiding behind the events in Montenegro?”