Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

Volume 3 Issue 6 Article 2

9-1983

The Small Religious Communities of Yugoslavia

Rudolf Grulich

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Recommended Citation Grulich, Rudolf (1983) "The Small Religious Communities of Yugoslavia," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 3 : Iss. 6 , Article 2. Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol3/iss6/2

This Article, Exploration, or Report is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ George Fox University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ George Fox University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. l THE SMALL RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES OF YUGOSLAVIA

by Rudolf Grulich

Th e Old Catholics

Th e Croatian bishop Josip Jura j Stro ssmay er of Djakovo was th e most

outspo ken oppon ent of th e dogma of papal infallibility at th e First

Vatican Council , and also th e last bi shop to accept th e council 's

decre es in 18 73, thr ee years aft er th e meet ing . Th ere was , how ever, no

Old Catholic mov ement in th e Croatian dioc es es at that tim e, although

th e situation was diff erent in th e German-sp eaking ar eas of middl e

Europ e. This was becaus e the imp erial gov ernment in Vi enna was against

th e Old Catholic mov ement . Neverth eless , th ere were circl es in Croatia

dating from Strossmay er's tim e which had Old Catholic sympathi es. Only

aft er th e First Wo rld Wa r was an Old Catholic Church abl e to exist in

th e ki ngdom of Serbia , Croatia and Slov enia , which was found ed in 1918 .

Similar to factions in Boh emia , groups of pri ests who were disappoint ed

in th eir demands for church reforms , subs equ ently seceded from Rom e.

Th eir new church was recogniz ed by th e stat e in 19 23, becaus e th e Old

Catholics permitt ed divorc e, among oth er things , and this was an

at traction to Catholics who were abl e to remarry in th e Church. In 19 24

th ese pri ests el ec ted th e form er canon of Split , Mar ko Kalog jera , as

th eir bi shop . He was cons ecrat ed in th e Old Catholic cent er of Utr echt

and led th e Croatian Old Catholic Church into the Union of Utr echt , th e

Council of all th e Old Ca tholic church es.

Church memb ership incr eas ed quic kl y . Just befor e th e Second Wo rld

Wa r th ere were as many as 68 ,000 Old Catholic pa rishion ers in 23 parish es. Th e new church tri ed to align its elf with Stro ssmay er. "Ev en if th e Old Cathol ic Church organization exists among our peopl e dating from this year , it was actually found ed in 18 70 at th e tim e of th e so-call ed Vatican Council . Its first found er and champion was th e gr eat son of th e Croatian peopl e, th e national bishop Josip Jura j

Strossmay er." This is what can be read in on e of th e proclamations of th e Old Catholic Church in 19 24 . It explains that only th e thr ea t of th e

Emp eror Franz Jos eph had forc ed Strossmay er to capitulat e to Rom e,

- 1 - si nce , co nsideri ng the good of the Croatia n people , Strossmayer wa nt ed

no "bloody enemy of the Croatia ns" as his successor in the bishopric of

Dj akovo . The Emperor would surely have appoi nt ed such a perso n had

Strossmay er removed himself from the bi shopric . "The Croatia n Old

Ca tholic Church is the realizatio n of the dream , the idea and the wishes

of Bishop Strossmayer ," wrote the publication Preporod (R ebirth ] at that

time about the church . This ne wspaper also published falsificatio ns of

Cou ncil speeches made by Strossmayer , agai ns t which nu merous Catholic authors protested .

As early as 1933 the first split of the Old Catholics in Yugoslavia

took place. Stro ng oppos itio n to Kalogjera arose because of his ma chi na tio ns in co nnectio n with the remarriage of divorced people .

Oppo ne nt s elected their ow n bi shop , who became a member of the Unio n of

Ut recht , wh ich the n in tur n excluded Kalogjera. Next to the Croatia n Old

Catholic Church (H rvatska starokatoli �ka crkva ] there was no w also a

Croatia n Natio nal Old Catholic Church [H rvatska na rod na starokatoli cka

crkva] . The ne wly elected bi shop ne ver received an exit visa to Ut recht

and died in a co nce ntratio n camp in the Seco nd World War . In fact , the

Old Catholics as a whole in the Indepe nde nt State of Croatia suffered

ve ry greatly in the years betwee n 1941 and 1945 . Only in 19 74 did the

Old Catholics reu nite. Until the n the Croatia n Old Catholic Church had

an archbi shop in Zagreb , three churches, three parishes , four priests

and a deaco n. The other Croatia n Old Catholic Church co nsisted of one

bishop , three parishes , a si ngle church and four priests. Both churches

publ ished mimeographed church ne wslette rs (S tarokatoli �ki Glas nik and

Starokatolik respectively ]. Si nce the successful unificatio n, the ne wly

na med co mmunity of Old Catholics , the Croatia n Catholic Church , co nsists of six parishes .

In 1946 a Slove nia n Old Catholic Church [S love ns ka starokatoliska

cerkev ] came into bei ng because of the state-ma ndated separation of the

bi shop' s curacy in Slove nia . The seat of the bishopric is in Ljublja na.

Under this bi shop are a church and two retreathouses , three parishes and

an affiliated institutio n. In 1954 , a separate Old Catholic Church of

Serbia and Vojvodi na (Starokatol i�ka Crkva Srbije i Vojvodi ne) was

- 2 - fou nded with a seat in Belgrade . It has only three pa rishes . The Old

Catholic Church for Bos nia and Hercegovi na , which origi nated in 1965,

has only one pa rish. It is no t a member of the Ut re cht Unio n, no r does

it belo ng to the unio n of the Old Catholic Church in the Socialist

Federal Re public of Yugosla via [S avez starokatoli �kih crka va u SFRJ] . In

spite of the Old Catholic Church 's appe al to the memory of Stros smayer

(but al so to other defe nders of Croatia n inde pende nce from Rome , like

the bi sho ps Gregor of Ni n and Ma rka nto nio de Domi nis) this de nomi na tion

in Yugoslavia pr obably does no t exceed five or six thousa nd pe o pl e.

The Pe ntecostals

Accordi ng to its ow n figures , The Pe ntecostal Church in Yugoslavia

nu mbers more tha n 5,000 members . Know n as the Pe ntecostal Church of

Chri st in the SFRY [K ristova Pe ntekost na Crkva u SFR J] , it is one of the

recog nized religious commu nities on federal soil . Aside from the

Socialist Re publ ic of Mo nt enegro , the Pe ntecostals are re prese nted in

all of the Yugoslav re publ ics . Seat of the church gover ning body is

Zagreb , while the Secretariat is located in Novi Sad .

The begi nni ng s of this church go back before the First World War ,

whe n religio nists in the Germa n po pulated area of Ba 6ka (in the

Hu ngaria n pa rt of the em pire of the Da nu be mo narchy) attached themselves

to the Pe ntecostal Mo veme nt. In the ne wly-created Yugoslavia in the year

1933 in the Prekmur ja area of Slove nia , a Pe ntecostal Church was fou nded

whe n a Slove nia n woma n, who had emigrated to America and had jo ined a

Pe ntecostal commu nity , retur ned with her Hu ngaria n husba nd, and bega n to wi n co nverts in her old home . In the year 1938 came the first est abl ishme nt of co ntact with other Pe ntecostal commu nities .

After a sus pensio n of the church in the war , duri ng which the

Pe ntecostals mo stly jo ined other Protesta nt co ngregatio ns, the church orga nized in Yugoslavia under the na me "Christia n Pe ntecostal Church in the Socialist Re publ ic of Yugloslavia ." It is divided accordi ng to re publ ic and has in additio n its ow n Ruma nia n grou p in Ba na t as well as a further grou p for the Hu ngaria n mi nority in the Backa . The nu mber of commu ni ties totals 73 : of those , 20 commu ni ties are in Croatia ; in

Serbia , includi ng Vo jvodi na, there are 28 . In Bos ni a-Hercegovi na there are only two commu nities ; in Ma cedo nia , one. There are ni ne Ruma ni a n

- 3 - commun ities , seven Hungar ian and six commun ities in Sloven ia--namely ,

Ljubljana , Mar ibor , Novo Mes to, Murska Sobo ta, Ve scica and Kuzma .

There has been a bibl ic al-theolog ical in stitu te of th is church in

Zagreb since 19 72 . It offers a th ree-year course of th eolog ical study .

In 19 76 th is in stitu te joined th e newly-founded "Pro tes tan t Theolog ical

Ins titu te Ma thias- Flacc ius-Illyr icus " in Zagreb. Also in Zagreb th ere appears mon thly a newspaper in Croa tian en titled Pe ntekos tna Vijes t [T he

Pe ntecos tal Messenger ]. In Ljublj ana Golgo tska ves t [M essage from

Golgo tha ] is publ ished and appears every other mon th. Beyond th at, numerous brochures and books have also been publ is hed .

As ide from th is Pe n te cos tal Church , th ere are a number of

Pe ntecos tal co mmun ities wh ich have no t joined th e umbrella organ iza tion in th is coun try . The bes t known is th e Chr is tian Pe ntecos ta l Church of th e Fo ot Washers with its cen ter in Vrdn ik near Vinkovc i. Th is group washes each other's fee t when ce lebra ting commun ion in an im ita tion of

Chr ist. The in dependen t Pe ntecos ta l Church in Subo tica also bap tizes ch ildren , wh ich th e other Pe ntecos tals do no t do .

The Pe ntecos ta l Church in Yugoslav ia engages in an ac tive ministry , par ticularly in th e field of ecumen ism. In June , 19 81 th e Canad ian evangel is t Oto Ko kosk i and co -workers vis ited several commun ities in

Yugoslavia. In early July , 19 81 Sloven ian Pe ntecos tals to ok an ac tive par t in a te nt min is tr y in ne ighbor ing Tr ies te. A Sic ilian group wh ic h was ac tive th ere al so vis ited Ljubl jana in connec tion with th e Tr ies te ministry . In mid-July , 19 81, th e Amer ican exege tical professor Dr .

Gordon Fe e held lec tures in Ve �cica near Murska Sobo ta and in Os ijek, whe re th e local commun ity con duc ted an ecumen ical serv ice in a bu ild ing wh ich was formerly a synagogue . The Pe ntecos tal Church is mos t ac tively engaged in th e ecumen ical movemen t in Sloven ia.

The Seven th-Day Adven tis ts

Al though th e Seven th-Day Adven tist creed was preached in th e reg io n wh ich is Yugoslav ia to day as early as th e 19 th cen tury , espec ially in

th e Sou th--wh ich belonged to th e Ottoman Em pire un til 19 12-- the found ing of a cen tral organ iz a tion of par ishes did no t ta ke place un til th e year

19 25 on th e occas ion of a confe re nce in Nov i Sad . Th is organ iza tion , th e

Yugoslav Un ion of Seven th-Day Adven tists , ha s four adm in is tr a tive areas ,

- 4 - called "assembl ies ." La ter th e sea t of th e Un ion was moved to Belgrade .

Be tween 1905 and 19 25 churches were founded in Belgrade , Kumane , Mokr in,

Novo Milosevo , Zagreb, Ma ribor , Ni� and Nov i Sad.

Today th e Yugoslav Un ion is divided in to four assembl ies . The

Nor thern Yugoslav Assembly with its sea t in Nov i Sad in cludes th e au tonomous prov ince of Vojvod ina . The Sou thern Yugoslav Assembly in Nis

is for th e au tonomous prov ince of Kosovo as well as Macedon ia and Serb ia. Bosn ia, Hercegov ina and Mon tenegro compr is e th e Sou thwes tern

Yugoslav ian Assembly with its sea t in Sarajevo . Croa tia and Sloven ia are

adm in is te red by th e Wes tern Yugoslav ian Assembly in Zagreb. The Seven th-Day Adven tis ts have abou t 300 organ ized congrega tions

at th eir disposal to day with more th an 10 ,600 bap tized members (1980

figures) and 120 ministers . Eigh ty-s ix churches are loca ted in Vojvod ina , 81 in th e Sou thern district of Yugoslav ia, 21 in Bosn ia­

Hercegov ina and th e res t in Croa tia and Sloven ia.

Fu rthermo re , th e Adven tis ts in Yugoslav ia suppor t tw o presses .

Znac i Vremena [S ig n of th e Times ] in Zagreb publ is hes pr imar ily

per iod ic als, th e publ is h ing house Pr eporod in Belgrade mos tly books .

Fo r 25 years th e par is h newspaper Glasn ik [Ec ho of th e Adven t] has .

be en publ is hed in eigh t languages : Serb ian , Croa tian , Sloven ian ,

Macdeon ian , Hungar ian , Slovak , Ruman ia n , and Alban ian . Fo r te n years

.' Znac i Vremena and Zivo t Zdravlje [L if e and Heal th] have been appear ing

four times a year in Croa tian and Serb ian , with an occas ional spec ial

is sue in Sloven ian and Hungar ian .

Pa storal educa tion ta kes place in th e Theolog ical Sem inary [V is oka

Teolo �ka Skola ] in Maru sevec near Vara zdin. Of im portance is th e miss ion

of th e Rad io Minis tr y of th e Adven tists, its soc ial engagemen t ( above

all , its car itas ac tiv ities and emergency rel ief) as well as th e

ac tiv ities for th e benef it of freedom of rel igion and consc ience wh ich

resul t from th e publ ic a tion of Savjes t i sloboda [C onsc ience and

Fr eedom ] in a Croa tian and a Serb ian ed ition .

As ide from the Seven th-Day Adven tis ts , th ere are several spl in te r

groups with an in sign ifican t number of members in th is co un try . Fo r

ex ample , in Belgrade th ere is th e Reform Movemen t of Seven th-Day

Adven tis ts and in Cerna near Zagreb , th e Vege ta rian Adven tists.

- 5 - The Baptists

In the year 19 23 a Un ion of Baptist Churches in the Kingdom of

Serbs, Croats , and Slovenes was founded . It has been called the Un ion of

Bapti st Churches in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia since the Second Wo rld Wa r, and today it has 54 congregations . Twent y-four of them are located in the Socialis t Republic of Croatia, another 24 in

Serbia, including the autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina , four in Slovenia, and one congregation each in Macedonia and Bosnia ­

Hercegovina . Aside from the four official congregations in Slovenia ,

Ljubl jana , Kranj , Trbov lje and Murska Sobota , there are also two free , independent Slovenian Bapti st congregations in Celje and Je senice. Each congregation has its own sphere of mission work .

The Baptists are part of the Protestant Mat hias-Flaccius-Illyricus

Faculty in Zagreb, founded in 19 76, and they also have their own theological school in Novi Sad . They publ ished a monthly newspaper in

Rijeka entitled Gl asnik (not being published presently). They publish the bi -monthly Gl as evandjelja [V oice of the Go spel ] in Zagreb. In the

Slova k language they publish a monthly called Navy rod [N ew Ge neration] which comes out in Ba cki Petrovac , the chief location of the Slovak minority in Yugoslavia . A monthly , the newspaper Iskre [S parks ] , is publ ished in the Serbo-Croation language and Latin script . It is brought out by the Baptist press Dobra vest [Good News ] in Novi Sad . Beyond

this, se veral larger congregations have mimeographed congregational newsletters .

The Un ion of Baptist Churches in the SFRY is a member of the

Ecumenical Council of Churches .

The Methodists ·

The Methodists are counted among the mo st active denominations of

the smaller religious groups recognized by the state in the SFRY . In the

area known as Yugoslavia today they have been represented since the end

of the 19th century in the former Austrian and Hungarian parts of the

country and also in Macedon ia. Un til the First World War the Methodists 2 in Macedonia were administered by the church in Aus tria . In 19 22 a

unification of all congregations took place , including Macedonians ,

Serbs , Croats , and today also Hungarians and Slovaks . Un til the Second

- 6 - World War there was also a relatively large number of Ge rmans .

The Methodist Church of Yugoslavia today has a Superintendent as

its chief adm inistrator . Presently he is the Macedonian Krum Kalajlijev , 3 who has his seat in Skopj e. The church Secretariat is located in Novi '' Sad . The church is divided into a Northern and a Southern district . The

Northern district has four divisions : Ba cka , Srem, Banat , and a sepa rate

Hungarian area for this strong national minority . In the Southern

di strict there are four areas of Skopje, Strumica , Murtino , and Prilep

in Macedonia, as well as Kosovska-Mi tr ovica for the Autonomous Area of

Kosovo , with about 20 congregations and their own churches .

" There are two monthly periodicals Put zivota [W ay of Life] and Gl as

Je vandjelja [V oice of the Go spel ] , which are duplicated in the Serbo-Croatian , Macedonian and Slovak languages . The Methodist Church in

Yugoslavia belongs to the Annual Conference for Western , Southern and

Southeastern Europe , and through these is connected to the World

Methodist Conference and the Ecumenical Council of Churches.

Je hovah 's Witnesses

Je hovah 's Witnesses have been recognized in Yugoslavia only since

19 53 . Presently they number around 10 ,000 adherents in 104 congrega ­

tions , but they have a prolific press , which far exceeds the number of

church members . Th eir Watchtower appears in a Croatian edition of 14 ,000

copies , in a Serbian edition (with Cyrillic characters) of 8,000 copies ,

and also in Slovenian (10 ,000 ) and Macedonian.

In Yugoslavia they are divided into 7 regions , which are led by a

"S ervant ."The regions are broken down , in turn , into church districts .

The Church of the Brethren

Even before the First World War some Slovaks in Ba cki Petrovac had

joined the Church of the Brethren . They spread quickly in the years

between the world wars so that on the eve of the Second World War there

were already 15 established congregations . Today the re are 24 ; 17 of

them in the Socialist Republ ic of Serbia (for the mo st part in

Vojvodina) , five in Croatia and two in Slovenia . They have no

professional ministers or priests . Their newspaper, Eternal Life ,

appears in the Serbian and Slovak languages every other month , as does

the Bratski Vjesnik [M essenger of the Brethren ] in the Croatian

- 7 - language .

In Slovenia there are two cong regat ions of Christ 's Church of the

Free Brethren located in Kr anj and .Maribor. Also in Kranj , there is an

Autonomous Church of Christ of the Fr ee Brethren .

Other Religious Communities

In addition to these groups there are also other less visib le church groups in some par ts of the SFRY , like the Spirit Church of the

Evangelical Brethren in Christ (Belgrade ) , the Seven -Day Church of Go d

(Novi Sad ) , the Mormons (Zadar ), the Church of Christ of Bethany

(Zagreb ) , the Church of Go d (Vinkovci ) , the Free Catholic Church

(Zagreb ), and the Independent Baptist Church (Padej ), among others .

The Jews in Yugoslavia

In comparison with their number in neighboring countries such as

Hungary and Rumania, Jews in the Kingdom of the Serbs , Croats , and

Slovenes, established in 1918 , later Yugoslavia, were numerically weakly represented . In Yugoslavia, in the interval between the two world wars , there were 121 Jewish communities , of which 72 were Ashkenazi , '3 6

Sephardic and 13 Orthodox groups . The total number of Ashkenaz i in 1931 was 4 7, 244 ; there were 26 , 459 Sephardic Jews and 2951 Orthodox . On ly after . World War I and the establishment of the Kingdom of th e Serbs ,

Croats and Slovenes was a union of Jewish religious communities established (19 21) with headquarters in Belgrade . Un til that time the

Jewish commmunities had reflected the history of the individual parts of th e countries out of which Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 .

Slovenia

In the region of the present-day Socialist Republic of Slovenia there is evidence of medieval Jewish communities in Ljubljana , Maribor,

Ptuj , Ormo z, Celje and other locations . Thei r cultural , religious , and economic center was Mar ibor , the old Marburg in the Lower Steiermark , where the Jews in the ghetto had self-government . Their mo st prominent leader was the rabbi Israel Isserlein. In 1496 in the Ste iermark and in

1519 , also in Carniola, all Jews were expelled . They subsequently settled in the Hungarian Burg enland , but also in Italy and Dalmatia .

Only under Emperor Josef II were Je ws permitted to settle temporarily in

Carniola and in the Lower Ste iermark . But until the twentieth century ,

- 8 - except in the former Hungarian Up per Mura Region (Prekmurje: Murska

Sobota and Donja Lendava ) i no Je wish commun ity was establ i shed in

Slovenia , no t even after the First World War . Only in Communist

Yugoslavia after World War II was a Jewish congregation establ ished and

organized in Ljubl jana.

Croatia

Archeological di scoveries testify to the presence of Jews along the Adriatic coast as early as Roman times . The oldest Jewish center in

Dalmatia was Split, in whose Jewish cemetery individuals lie buried who played an important role in the history of the city . There were also large Jewish comm un ities in the Middle Ages in Dubrovnik and in Rijeka ; al so in Northern Croatia , especially in Zagreb , Vara zdin and other localities . The fact that Croatia was part of the Habsburg empire led to the pe rsecution and expulsion of . Jews also in Inner Croatia , while in

Dalmatia un der the rule of Venice and in the republ ic of Dubrovnik the

Jews were able to live without interru ption .

Serbia

In the region of present-day Serbia Jews have been present from

Roman and Byzantine times , but later the ma jority of Jews in Serbia came from Spain , settling in Turkish times after their exp ulsion from Spa in

(149 2) ; in fact , mos tly after the Turkish conquest of Belgrade (1521) .

Organized communities , having cultural and economic ties with Constan­ tinople , Salonika , Sofia , Bitola an d Sarajevo , existed not only in

Belgrade , but also in Ni s, Smederevo and Po �arevac . In the year 18 45,

10 87Je ws lived in Belgrade.

Vojvodina

Judging by the numb er of communities , the pr esent-day autonomous region of Vojvodina was the area with the largest concentration of Je ws in Yugo slavia . The history of the Jews in Vojvodina is part of th e history of the Hungarian Jews , who were granted the same civil rights in

18 68 as all other citizens .

Montenegro

In the former kingdom of Montenegro th ere was no Jewish mi nority .

In the coastal region , which now belongs to the Socialist Republic of

Montenegro . There is evidence of Jews in Ul cinj , where the leader of a

- 9 - psudo-messianic mov ement , Sabbataj .Z vi, lived in Turki sh times , and where his presumed grave is still exhibited . In Kotor , which was

Austrian until 19 18 , there was also a Jewi sh cemetery .

Macedon ia

From Acts of the Apostles we know that there existed Jewish

communities in Macedonia at the �i me of the apostle Paul . In Byzantine

v times there were communities in present-day Skopj e, Bitola, Stip, Resen ,

Ohrid and Struga . The modern Jewish communities in Macedonia were

Sephardic and spoke Spanish .

Bosnia-Hercegovina

In 19 66 Jews in Sarajevo celebrated the four-hundredth anniversary

of the arrival of Spanish Jews in Bosnia. They retained their na tive

Spanish language until the Holocaust of World War II . Since these

Sephardic Jews were also settled in Serbia , Macedonia and throughout the

Balkans, it is helpful to give an overv iew of their history .

The Sephardic Jews

Elias Canetti , a writer who uses the Ge rman language, was

di stinguished with the Nobel Prize fo r Literature in 19 81. Although he

writes in Ge rman and lives in both Zurich and London , Canetti comes from

the city of Rus se in Bulgaria . "W hen I say that my native city is

situated in Bulgaria, I am giving an inadequate description , because people of the most diverse background lived there . In one day you could

hear seven or eight languages . In addition to the Bulgar ians , there were

Turks , Gr eeks , Albanians, Armenians, Gy psies , Rumanians and Russians ."

Canetti's native language , like that of many Jews in Yugoslavia , was Spanish.

Spanish has been spoken for almost half a millenium in th e Balkans

and in the Near East. In the same year in which Columbus discovered

America, 14 9 2, and from the time that Spanish began its triumphal sweep

as a world language into Central and South America , Spanish was also

being carried eastward . Two hundred thousand Jews , who had been expelled

from Spain , sought and found new homes in what was then the Ottom an

Empi re . Taken in .by the Turkish sult ans , they settled in Constantinople

and Smyrna, in Corfu , Rhodes , Salonika, Sofia, Sarajevo and other

localities in the Tur kish Kingdom. Recognized as a nation (millet ) under

- 10 - the Millet System of the Sublime Porte , they lived an autonomous life

and could thus preserve the Spanish language and culture of their

original country into the twentieth ce ntury . In contrast to the Je ws of

th e Ge rman Eastern territo ries , the Ashkenazi, they are termed Sephardim

or Sephardic Je ws after the Hebrew word for Spain , "Sepharad ."

Un til the First World War their spiritual center was Salonika .

Because so many Je wi sh refugees had settled there , as early as the 17th

century th ere was a Spanish-Jewish majority . This was confirmed by

reports of travelers . The situation changed during the Balkan wars when

Salonika fe ll to the Gr eeks . At that ti me there were still 70 ,000 Je ws

out of 120,000 residents with Spanish as their native language . In 19 23 when hundreds of thousands of Gr eeks from Asia Minor were settled in

Macedonia , Salonika acquired a Gr eek majority for the first time . 1

Sarajevo and Bosnia

Another Je wish center was Sarajevo where Je ws settled beginning in

1566 . The four-hundredth anniversary of this event was also celebrated

in Yugoslavia in 1966 by official state functionaries . Seph ardic Je ws sett led , too , in other cities in Bosnia . The Yugoslav Nobel Prize winner for literature , Ivo Andri 6, describes and gives real feel ing to the life of Spanish Je ws in his novels, short stories and novellas , most vividly in hi s Chronicle of Travnik , whose Ge rman edition carries the title

Vizie rs and Consuls .

On the occasion of the recall of the French Consul in Trav nik , which was then the residence of the Bosnian Viziers , in 1813 , the le ader of the Je wish population in Travnik , Salomon Atijas , says a fo rmal farewell to him. His assessment of the relati onship between the strict and unyielding vizier and the Je ws is as follows . "Yes , the vizier is actually a strict and difficult ruler . But he only deals with the Je ws at one time in history . The Je ws have dozens and dozens of viziers in their pa st ... The viziers leave this place , forget what they have done and how they have ruled . New vi ziers appear and every new ruler begins the old game . But we remain he re--remember everything , write down everything which we have endured , how we defended and saved ourselves from it . We pass these dearly-bought experiences from father to son."

Salomon keeps the specific experiences , needs and wishes to himself ,

- 11 - without expressing the following private thoughts to the Consul : "Our misery consists in the fact that we can neither lo ve this country , to

which we have an obligation , be cause it has taken us in and protected us , nor have we learned to hate the country which unjustly expelled and banned us like unworthy sons . We do not know which is more difficult fo r us : that we are here or that we are not there. It really does not matter where we might live outside of Spain , we would still suffer, because we would always have two countries. I know that . But here life has dri ven us into too narrow a corner and it has humiliated us . I also know that we have changed our character long ago . We no longer remember how we

once were , but that we were once different , this we do remember ."

And Salomon At ijas says further in his thoughts : "We have the

language of our old home in our minds , the way we brought it with us

three hundred years ago and the way people there no longer speak it . We

mangle the language of the Rajah with whom we share our suffering , and we mangle the language of the Turks , who rule us . So perhaps the day is not far off , in which we will only be able to express ourselves pu rely

and with human dignity in our prayers , for which words are really not

necessary anyway . Isolated and small in numbers , we marry among

ourselves and see our blood getting thinne r and paler ... Fortunately and

also unfort unately we have retained the picture of our much-loved

country in our memory , the way it once was , before it cast us out like a

stepmothe r; thus , our longing for a better world , for a world of order

and humanity has never been extinguished . We long for a world in which a

person may stand upright , look peacefully forward , and speak openly . We

will never be able to free ourselves from this longing any more than

from the feeling that in spite of everything , we belong to this world ,

al though we now live banished and unhappily in the opposite ki nd of world ."

This Spanish-Jewish world in Bosnia also appears in the writings of

the Serbo- Croatian writer Isak Samokovlija, who accurately portrays the

Jewish environment in his short stories . They have appeared under the

title The Red Dah lia and they are also available in Ge rman .

- 12 - Mortally Wounded by Hitler

When Ge rman troops occupied Gr eece and Yugoslavia in the Balkan

campaign in 1941 , tens of thousands of Sephardic Je ws came under

Hitler 's domination . This also happened to Je ws in Rumania and Bulgaria ,

because their native countries were allied with Hitler. However ,

Bulgaria protected its Je ws as far as possible against him. With the

setting in place of the Nazi death machinery , Spanish Je wry ceased to

exi st for al � practical purpos es in Southeastern Europe . The flourishing

communities in Sarajevo and Skopje, Belgrade and Bitola were liquidated .

After the war, the few survivors emigrated to Israel or overseas .

The Present Situation

Today the ma jority of Sephardics live in Israe l, where in Tel Aviv

two Je wish-Spanish weekly newspapers are published , La Verdad and El

Tiemp �. A number of scientific institutions in that country are

concerned with the study and preservation of Sephardic culture . Turkey

is still the country with the second large st number of Spanish-speaking

Je ws. Of the 40 ,000 Turkish Je ws , over half are of Spanish origin . They

have synagogues and schools in Istanbul , whe re they publ ish two weekly

newspapers , La vera luz and Salom . One finds Spanish Je ws mostly in the

Ortak oy and Hask oy sections of Istanbul . There a visitor is greeted with

a "Venido bueno i claro." Je wish merchants also speak Spanish among

themselves at the bazaar, wh en they don't want customers to understand

what they 're saying . A visitor hears the sound of Spanish romanceros

coming from Je wish homes . People still sing about Toledo and Madrid as well as Qu een Isabella. They still serve Spanish food .

In Yugoslavia Spanish Je wry is dying out , but in recent years books of Spanish sayings have still appeared in Bosnia as have folk tales in

Macedonia.

Yugoslav Je ws Before and During the Second World War

When the Kingdom of the Serbs , Croats and Slovenes was formed in

1918 , the different Je wish communities in the country were also unified .

Un til that time they had lived within the state administration of

Austria and Hungary in the kingdom of Serbia ; and until 191 2 they had also been , in part , Turkish subjects . The first meeting of the new Un ion

- l3 - of Je wish Communities took place in the year 19 21. In 19 29 a law was promulgated for the Je wish communities , which stipulated , among other things, that the organization include all Je wish religious communities except for the Orthodox Je ws. This organization was responsible for the numerous refugees from Ge rmany , beginning in 1933. Ju st before World War

II , which began for Yugoslavia in 1941 , there were 75 ,0 00 Je ws. Of this number 4 I 000 were emig res from ot her countries . In the school year

1938/39 there were 6,71 3 Je wish secondary school and universit y students . Of this number , 70 9 were at Yugoslav universities . Although

Je ws represented only .46% of the population of Yugoslavia, the y represented 4.4 % of ' the students in Yugoslavia.

In 19 28 a Theological Institute for the education of rabbis ha d been bu ilt in Sarajevo .

In the Second World War 60 ,000 Yugoslav Je ws lost their lives . The be st situation for Je ws was to be found in the Italian-oc cupied areas on the coast, whereas in the Croatian Us tascha State and the Hungarian or

Bulgarian-occupied regions they were turned over to the Ge rmans . Of the

15 ,000 survivors only a few thousand remained in Yugoslavia . There were

56 comm uni ties newly-established after the war I but between December

1948 and October 195 2 alone 7,739 Je ws emigrated to Israel . The census of 1953 , which was the last census reque sting information about citize n religious affiliation , counted only 2,565 people who considere d themselves Je ws in the religi ous sense . As ethnic Je ws , 4,811 people in

Yugoslavia were counted in the census of 19 71. The number of members of

Je wish communities in th e year 1980 totalled 5,638 people. The Un ion of

Je wish Communities in Yugoslavia publishes the monthly Je vrejski pregle d

[Jewish Review ] in Belgrade today . There are also a youth magazine ,

Kadima , an almanac and different books published in Belgrade . There is a museum also in Belgrade and a retirement home in Zagreb .

Translated from Ge rman by Dr. Erl is Gl ass , Rosemont Co llege

- 14 - Jewish Communities Before and After World War II

Name Membership Na me Membership Apatin 61 Parabuc 73 Ba cka Palanka 229 Petrovgrad 1267 Backa Topola 254 Pi rot 96 Bajmok 123 Podravska Slatina 136 Banja Luka se phardic 244 Pri stina 385 Banka Luka aschkenasic 139 Rogatica 44 Bela Crkva 52 Ruma 249 Belgrade sephardic 8500 Sanski Most 94 Belgrade aschkenasic 1888 Sarajevo aschkenasic 1060 Bezdan 90 Saraj evo sephardic 70 54 Biha 6 156 Senta 595 Bijeljina 245 Sisak 258 Bitola 3146 Skopje 2816 Bjelovar 33 7 Slavonska Pozega 123 Br cko 145 Slavonski Brod 423 Cakovec 404 Smederevo 70 Ca ntavir 66 Sombor 945 Conoplja 31 Split 284 Curug 55 Sremska Mitrovica 100 Daruvar 169 st ani �ic 31 Debeljaca 148 Stara Kanj iza 174 Derventa 118 Stara Moravica 38 Doboj 53 Stari Becej 253 Dolnja Lendava 134 Stari Sivac 47 Donji Miholjac 173 Subotica 4900 Dubrovnik 24 su sak 143 Dakovo 19 7 Sabac 83 Horgo s 24 stip 588 Karlovac 29 7 Temerin 63 Koprivnica 358 Titel 80 Kragujevac 85 Travnik 261 Kri zevci 119 Tuzla 241 Kula 124 Valpovo 140 Kutina 13 2 Vara zdin 515 Leskovac 59 Velika Kikinda 51 2 Ludbreg 82 Vinkovci 630 Mali Idjos 30 Virovitica 204 Mostar 14 2 Visoko 126 Murska Sobota 71 1 vi se grad 93 Na sice 229 Vlasenica 61 Nis 33 7 Vr sac 290 Nova Gr adi sk a 198 Vukovar 213 Novi Be cej 20 4 Zagreb aschkenasic 8712 No vi Kne zevac 69 Zagreb sephardic 625 Novi Pazar 29 7 Zvidovici 11 7 Novi Sad 4104 Zemun aschkenasic 354 Novi Vrbas 233 Zemun sephardic 11 5 Osijek Go rnjigrad 2400 Zenica 19 5 Osijek Dolajigrad 184 Zvornik 78 Pakrac 99 Zabalj 100 Pan cevo 403 Zepce 58

- 15 - Name Membership Name Membership Th ere were also th e fo llowing Ortho­ In 1969 on e fin ds this pictur e of do x communiti es in 1940 : post-war communiti es: Ada 350 Ada Ba cka Pa lanka 50 Apatin Ba cki Petrovac 100 Ba c Ba cko Petrovo Selo 310 Ba ckovo Petrovo Selo Ilok (aschk en. orth .) 160 Banja Luka 47 Ilok 150 Belg ra de 160 2 Mo l 100 Bito la Senta (s eph .) 850 Bugojno Sombor 70 Dubrovnik 62 Stara Kanj iza 35 Kikin da 4 Subotica 560 Kosovska Mitrovica Zagr eb 130 Mo l Mostar 74 In 194 7 th e fo llowing communiti es Novi Pazar 10 were in plac e: Novi Sa d 281 Ada 59 Osij ek 220 Apatin 25 Pan cevo 78 Ba c 2 Pirot Ba ckovo Petrovo Selo 26 Pri �tina Banja Luka (+85 in th e vicinity) 46 Rij eka 160 Belg ra de 2271 Saraj ev o 1090 Bito la 57 S en t a 58 Bugojno 8 Skop je 54 Dubrovnik 31 Sombor 61 Kikin da 37 Sp lit ll5 Kosovska Mitrovica 33 Sr emska Mitrovica Mo l ll Subotica 403 Mostar 65 id Novi Pazar 36 Tuz la 60 Novi Sa d( +2 20 in th e vicinity ) 1001 Vrsac 7 Osij ek (+249 in th e vicinity ) 361 Zagr eb 1341 Pan cevo (+13 in th e vicinity 88 za vi dovi ci 12 Pi rot 12 Zemun 136 Pristina 224 Zenica 30 Rij eka (+75 in th e vicinity ) 99 Zr enjanin 28 Sa raj ev o 155 7 Senta (+118 in th e vicinity) llO Up unti l 1969 th ere were also th e Skopj e 328 fo llowing communiti es: Sombor (+56 in th e vicinity) 145 Ba cka Topo la 29 Sp lit (+19 in th e vicinity) 163 Bj elovar 12 Str emska Mitrovica 20 Bec ej 5 (+13 in th e vicinity) Cakov ec 21 Subotica (+276 ortho dox Jews) 981 Daruvar 36 sid 16 Doboj 27 Tuz la 78 Ja jc e 20 Vr sac 31 Ljub ljana 84 Zagr eb (+434 in th e vicinity ) 2080 Ni s 36 Zavi do vi 6i 25 Slavonski Bro d 32 Zemun 13 2 Travnik 17 Zenica (+9 in th e vicinity) 34 Virovitica 34 Zr enjanin 92

- 16 - Endnotes

1 Translated from Gl aube in der 2. Welt (Zollikon , Switzerland ), Vol . 11 , No . 2 (1983 ), pp . 15- 21 by permission of the publishers . The author ba sed the ·a rticle on information based primarily upon Zlatko Frid , Vjerske Za jednice u Jugoslavi ji (Zagreb, 19 70), Franc Perko , Verstva v Jugoslavi ji (Cel je, 19 79), and Radovan Samardzic , Religious Communisites in Yugoslavia (Belgrade , 1981 ) as well as with the help of Rev . Hans Frei of Christcatholisches Pfarramt in Bern , Switzerland and Mr . Christian B. Schaffler of the Communications Section of the Advent -Mission in Basel , Switzerland . Not all religious communi ties have been covered in this article , not even all of the smaller ones . The Roman Catholic Church, The Serbian Orthodox Church , The Macedonian Orthodox Church, and the Muslim Religious Community can be regarded as the ma jo r religious groups of Yugoslavia . The [L utheran ] Evangelical Churches and the Reformed Churches have not been included in this article though they are minority churches . Gl aube in der 2. welt previously published articles on the Roman Catholic Church , Islam, and the Reformed Churches .

2 Ed itor 's comment : The above sentence is incorrect as there were no Methodist churches in Macedonia prior to 19 21 . These churches used to be administered by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Boston , MA as Congrega tional churches and were transferred to the Methodists by an agreement after World War I. For detailed information see Paul Mo jzes, "A History of the Congregational and Methodi st Churches in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia," unpublished doctoral dissertation at Boston Un iversity , 1965 .

3 Now deceased [e ditor 's note .]

- 17-