engleski

A niche in post-conflict space: the development of the Baptist church as a "middle option" for Serbs in the Banovina region, Croatia

In Ex-Yugoslavia, national identity generally has been closely linked with religious identity. While the notion that the war in Bosnia-Hercegovina and adjacent areas of Croatia between 1991 and 1995 was a religious war is basically wrong, there have been attempts by politicians to link the national with the religious questions. Although with only about 2000 adult (baptized) members in 41 local churches today, Baptists form a tiny minority in Croatia which is strongly dominated by the Roman Catholic Church (88 % of the population regarding themselves as Catholics), there has been a high growth rate with a doubling of the number of members and churches from 1996 to 2004. In the Banovina area of the Krajina (the historical Austrian-Hungarian Military Frontier), approximately 60 km south of Zagreb, it has been observed that there was a considerable post-war expansion of the Baptist Church, and that it was mainly ethnic Serbs and people from mixed marriages who joined the Church. Most of them had been Communists. For them, neither the Catholic Church which is usually regarded a Croatian church nor the Serbian Orthodox Church are viable religious options. In the paper, the question is raised whether this development can be interpreted as a substitution of one “ trans-national” identity by another: atheism by Baptist church, both of them being outside the Croatian-Catholic/Serbian-Orthodox dichotomy. The findings are based on sample surveys of church members as well as on interviews with church representatives.

geography of religion; Baptist Church; Croatia; post-conflict space; identity

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