For months, Serbian citizens have been protesting against the repressive regime of Aleksandar Vučić and the entire corrupt, clientelist system developed or escalated under his rule. The protests were initiated by the students of Serbian Universities, but they have since evolved into a nationwide popular movement that refuses to align with any of the established political parties —for good reason.

The Serbian Orthodox Church, the largest religious community in the country, has been divided over these protests from the very beginning. While the overwhelming majority of its bishops have chosen to remain silent, there have been isolated voices within the episcopate both for and against the protests. Students of the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade have joined the protests, and individual theologians have expressed their support as well. Patriarch Porfirije, the head of the Church, has remained ambiguous. He has avoided openly supporting the protests, under the pretext that the Church needs to remain above societal divisions. However, through internal and informal channels of communication, one gets an impression that he supports the students, even if he may be too weak to publicly oppose the regime.

One of the few clerics who have openly spoken against the protests is Bishop David of Kruševac, a city in central Serbia. In a text dated February 9, 2025, using mostly complicated (and empty) phraseology and quasi-theological arguments, he linked the protests and “neo-Orthodox” theologians, accusing them of promoting “a different Orthodoxy” that distorts and corrupts tradition. Before him, Irinej, Bishop of Novi Sad (northern Serbia), criticized what he called the “Orthodox Trilateral” — an alliance of (unnamed but hinted-at) theological institutions from the US and Europe — as a “neo-Orthodox theological international” (and nothing good was meant by this). 

Despite these and other pressures, the priests of the Kruševac Cathedral demonstrated both initiative and courage, both freedom and their Christian and human dignity. On February 27, they stepped out of the church and, in front of the cathedral, greeted the protesters as they marched through the streets of Kruševac. They gave them their blessings and arranged for food and drinks to be placed along the sidewalks for all participants.

To fully appreciate this act, one must understand how church structures function in countries where Orthodoxy has been the dominant and traditional faith. The Orthodox Church is organized as an “episcopocentric” institution, meaning that local bishops wield enormous power over priests in their diocese, with little to no external oversight except in extreme cases. In other words, priests are often at the mercy of their local bishop: if the bishop is a reasonable and good person, priests are in a solid position, but if the bishop is authoritarian, egotistical, or even psychotic, effectively only God can help them. There are, although very few, extraordinary bishops, who are competent, dedicated to the Church, but also kind-hearted and hard-working people. These dioceses are known among the priests and the laity as “paradise on earth.” 

The decision of the priests to support the protesters comes against such backdrop. They organized spontaneously, they say “naturally”, with initially only a few of them, later joined by others. Although they would probably object to the term “self-management” or “anarcho-syndicalist” (given that these terms come primarily from the political vocabulary, and are mostly linked to atheistic and even anti-religious contexts), their spontaneous organization, at their own initiative, and against the backdrop of authoritarian ecclesiastical context, resembles the self-managerial, or anarcho-syndicalist organization (that the students themselves have implemented in their own organization from the beginning of the protests). 

This anarcho-syndicalist mode of organization is not a novelty in the Balkans. One should keep in mind the tradition of Yugoslav socialist self-management, but also the even earlier tradition of traditional Serbian village cooperatives. 

In the context of the Orthodox Church, there are historical reports of anarcho-syndicalist organization of monks and priests in Russia, in the aftermath of the February Revolution (1917), as a means of reclaiming freedom from authoritarian church structures.
The decision of these priests to express their position—both as Orthodox Christians and as citizens—in the situation when the political views of their bishop, and his arrogant rhetoric, were clearly expressed and known, is a brave act, a demonstration of freedom, and a commitment to justice and basic human dignity. This act can serve as an example for other priests to stand up in the name of human freedom and dignity, to reject repression, hypocrisy and corruption, and to challenge, non-violently, the despotic rule of both the local political leaders and individual bishops. Practicing such Orthodox Christian “anarchism” not only affirms their status as free citizens but also upholds their identity as Orthodox Christians—people of dignity, committed to freedom, justice, and, above all – love.

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