(Forum18) While a Serbian Orthodox church is being built in Lovcenac in northern Vojvodina, the local authority’s allocation of land in the same village to build a Montenegrin Orthodox church sparked an immediate response from Serbia’s religion minister, Milan Radulovic.

He claimed that as an unregistered religious community, the Montenegrin Church does not exist, adding that the government has a duty to stop it and the Macedonian Orthodox Church building any places of worship in Serbia.

The head of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, Archbishop Mihailo, condemned what he called “arrogant behavior on the part of Serbia,” pointing out to Forum 18 News Service that the Serbian Orthodox Church operates unhindered in Montenegro.

The Serbian government has tried to exclude or restrict all other Orthodox communities, including the Romanian Orthodox, the Old Calendarist Orthodox, the Macedonian Orthodox and the Montenegrin Orthodox.

(Forum18) Meanwhile, soon after news emerged that an ethnic Macedonian association had bought a plot of land in Novi Sad to build Serbia’s first Macedonian Orthodox church, religion minister Milan Radulovic declared publicly that the state has a duty to prevent the building of the church.

“Radulovic’s statements deny us one of our most basic rights — the right to freedom of confession,” Dragan Veljkovski, president of the Association of Macedonians in Vojvodina which bought the site, told Forum 18 News Service.

He complained of “very heavy pressure” since the news became public which has led to the building plans being postponed. Macedonians contrast the Serbian government’s strong defence of the persecuted Serbian Orthodox Church in neighbouring Macedonia with its moves to restrict non-Serbian Orthodox jurisdictions at home.

Read the full stories on Serbian church restrictions http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=648 and http://www.forum18.org/Archive.php?article_id=650