Васељенска патријаршија, Српска православна црква и црквене реформе између два светска рата
The Ecumenical Patriarchy, the Serbian Orthodox Church and Church Reforms Between the Two World Wars

Author(s): Radmila Radić
Subject(s): Political history, Politics and religion, Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), Eastern Orthodoxy, Sociology of Religion, History of Religion
Published by: Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije
Keywords: Kingdom of SHS/Yugoslavia; Serbian Orthodox Church; Ecumenical Patriarchy; church reforms;
Summary/Abstract: The demands for reforms in many matters occurred in the Orthodox Churches after the First World War. One of the most important of them was the matter of the calendar. Representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchy were leading proponents of the reformist tendencies within Orthodoxy. This was a direct consequence of the political changes in Turkey in 1920s. They convened an all-Orthodox congress in Constantinople in 1923, which was attended also by the representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Neither all Orthodox Churches nor the majority of their representatives were represented at the congress, so its legitimacy soon became disputed. The decisions which were reached were not put to practice by most Orthodox Churches, and even where they were, it was not done in the same way, which led to serious splits within the Orthodox world. Although it had its representatives at the congress, the Serbian Orthodox Church did not apply its decisions (the calendar, the second marriage of priests etc.). Diverging opinions about the congress’s decisions caused serious polemics among theologians and priests in the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. Attempts at solving the questions which divided the orthodox world at the ecumenical congress yielded no results until the Second World War, and they remained open even later.

• Details
• Contents