World Cup Churches: 27. Serbia

Continuing a series of blogs heading round the 32 qualifying countries in the 2022 World Cup - I will pick out one church in each one.  I am not going to choose only churches that are to my liking.  This is an exploration not a recommendation! To see all in the series select the label 'World Cup Churches' below.

Writing on a day when the 2021 Census revealed that slightly less than half the population of England and Wales identified as Christian, it might be tempting to think of Serbia as an antidote.  In Serbia over 91% identify as Christian, a remarkable figure for a (small) European state.

Unfortunately, this is not necessarily a sign of a deeper Serb spirituality.  The Serbian Orthodox Church is regarded as nearly synonymous with being Serbian.  This part of Europe has been through centuries of turmoil of all kinds, as anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of the Balkans knows.  For two centuries the area was Islamic within the Ottoman Empire, and a significant factor in the nationalism associated with the Serbian Orthodox Church is the sense that it was and is a bastion against Islam.

This leaves all other religions and denominations firmly on the margins, but one interesting margin has the Basilica of St Demetrius in Stremska Mitrovica.  Despite its very Orthodox-sounding name (Demetrius was a soldier saint from Thessaloniki in Greece) it is a Catholic Church.

Why is it interesting?  Because it represents something about Stremska Mitrovic which long predates the existence of Islam or the Orthodox Church.  This was once Sirmium and this ancient Roman city became one of the Capitals of the Roman Empire when the administration was shared out upon Rome's decline.  In the third century ten of the Roman Emperors came from the area around the city.

As the Empire turned Christian Sirmium naturally became important in the Church too and to cut a very long story short that is why it hosted no less than four (some think three) Church Councils.  Yet strangely anyone may have heard of the Council of Nicea and/or the Nicene Creed.  Or even the Council of Constantinople (more nerdy that).  But few have heard of any of the four Councils of Sirmium.

The reason is quite simple.  These were councils called to try and incorporate a heresy - Arianism - in the Church.  (Arius himself had been previously exiled to this area from Alexandria).

Next week we'll be singing carols in the street about God becoming Man.  Over the road the Jehovah's Witnesses will be proffering their literature - but no carols of course.  Their views are somewhat like those of the Arians regarding Jesus - a man not God.  When we talk of the Grinch that stole Christmas, that Grinch might easily have been Sirmium!

Focus

I was delighted to read that someone of international standing has recommended my car!

 

Pope Francis said: "It hurts me when I see a priest or a nun with the latest model car, you can't do this.  Cars are necessary. But take a more humble one. Think of how many children die of hunger and dedicate the savings to them."

Further investigation proves, allegedly, that he practices what he preaches. The Pope himself shuns comfortable expensive transport and when driving around his city he uses . . .

. . . a humble Ford Focus.

I was really feeling quite good about this.  Though not under Pope Francis's administration or tutelage I was conducting my ministry from the same humble transportation that he himself uses by way of example.

 

Then something bothered me.

 

When, in something of an emergency as my previous car clapped out, I bought my Ford Focus I thought it was a nice car, a good one that made me wonder whether, well, I should have bought something more humble.

 

Which only goes to show that a Pope's humility is a Baptist Pastor's luxury (at least in Britain!).

 

There again, Jesus walked . . .

Simple really

Here we are in the midst of Mr J.A. Ratzinger's visit to the UK.  I am listening to Latin emanating from the middle of golden pillars shrouded in clouds of incense.

For me the most telling thing about this visit is how good it is at its simplest and how, as it moves into higher things political and ecclesiastical, it moves further away from the Carpenter of Nazareth.

Here are the wonderful words the Pope spoke to schoolchildren yesterday;

"Happiness is something we all want, but one of the great tragedies in this world is that so many people never find it, because they look for it in the wrong places. The key to it is very simple -- true happiness is to be found in God," he said.  "God wants your friendship. And once you enter into a friendship with God, everything in your life begins to change."

Or to put it another way, Sic enim dilexit Deus mundum ut Filium suum unigenitum daret ut omnis qui credit in eum non pereat sed habeat vitam aeternam.