Srpska pravoslavna crkva i jevrejsko pitanje
Serbian Orthodox Church And The Jewish Question

Summary/Abstract: The relation of Serbian Orthodox Church to the Jewish question is traced through the attitudes and actions of its most influential representatives. The main concept of the bishop Nikolaj Velimirović was a renewal of the Serbdom and Christianity at large. The frightful impact of the Bolshevik revolution was the main cause of his strengthening anti-Semitism, spread as well with other clerics of the Orthodox Church. These attitudes were strongly expressed in the course of 1930s. Alongside with internationalism, bishop Nikolaj criticized imperialism and chauvinism. In the second half of 30s he was criticizing both communism and fascism, and was publicly speaking in favor of the Jews during their persecution. Such position had an impact in the Jewish community, whose influential members held his public action in great esteem. Patriarch Gavrilo was a consequent enemy of totalitarian ideologies. His public display of sympathy for the persecuted Jewish people was particularly noted in the Jewish audience. The engagement of the Serbian Orthodox Church against the accession of Yugoslavia to the Tripartite Alliance was an encouragement to the Jewish community on the eve of its destruction.

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