Pope Warned Montenegro Over Religion Law, Serbian Church Claims

As the battle continues in Montenegro over a controversial new law on religion, the country's largest faith body, the Serbian Orthodox Church, has claimed that Pope Francis asked the Prime Minister not to adopt the law before obtaining the consent of all religious communities in Montenegro.

The Church's official website quoted the Pope's response to a letter from the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch, Irinej, stating that the Vatican had contacted PM Dusko Markovic.

"The Secretary of State, Cardinal Petro Parolin, personally addressed Markovic, not with the aim of interfering with the internal affairs of the Montenegrin state, but in the hope that the proposed law concerning religious freedoms would be passed on democratic principles," the letter states.

"Otherwise it should not be confirmed unless the highest possible agreement of all religious communities in Montenegro is reached first," the letter to Irinej adds.

Markovic's office did not respond to queries from BIRN about whether it had received the letter from the Vatican or responded to it by the time of publication.

The government has pushed ahead with the controversial proposed law, despite continuing opposition from the Serbian Church, which accuses it of planning to raid its assets.

The main area of contention in the law is the proposal to register as state property of all religious buildings and sites formerly owned by the independent kingdom of Montenegro before it became part of the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia, in 1918.

The law states that religious communities can only retain their assets if they can produce evidence of the right to ownership, triggering accusations from the Serbian Church that the government...