On the 9th of May, the Association “Alliance of Christians-Croatia” organized an international interreligious conference “Faith and Reasoning in Contemporary Society” in Zagreb, where, among others, speakers included Sreten Vujović, academician of DANU and secretary of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, and civic activist from Cetinje Danilo Brajović.
We bring you he speeches of Vujović and Brajović in full.
Faith and Reasoning
(Presentation at the International Online Conference on the topic “Faith and Reasoning,” Zagreb, March 9, 2025 – Summary of a more extensive study)
Written by:: Sreten VUJOVIĆ, Academician of DANU and Secretary of the Holy Archdiocesan Synod of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Esteemed Participants of the Conference,
Reflecting on the theme of this gathering, I could not escape the impression that faith is not always a path to personal liberation, nor a path to sound reasoning and behavior. Numerous church scandals point to this, the most glaring among them being those involving the abuse of ecclesiastical power—whether for political purposes or for the satisfaction of the most primitive urges, including sexual abuse and pedophilia! In this regard, Father Bojan Jovanović is engaged in what I would call a Don Quixotic struggle, which has finally been crowned with his harrowing yet truthful book How We Killed God!
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!” This is not an apocalyptic statement or an expression of madness, but a message of liberation! All human weaknesses lie in the spiritual sphere; they do not exist in the material world unless we, on the fragile and never fully realized path of Knowledge, bring them there with our own spirit… However, no form of power or social dominance is primarily based on the spiritual, but rather on the material. The spiritual component is, at best, a “decorative” and “melancholy companion”! And here arises the need for subjugation, which is not merely a pleasure but becomes an instrument of domination, in which any form of reasonable judgment is declared “heretical” or “atheistic” behavior.
Subjugation as pleasure does not represent an eternal drive toward such a state but is merely a sign of a historical and psychological factual condition. This need implies finding arguments to justify the desire or the gratification of the desire for submission. Such a situation almost always “justifies” actors outside the religious sphere whose problematic actions appear to them as “necessary” and “inevitable.”
Psychologically, these needs can differ in their goals! In one case—though only in the initial stage—a student finds themselves in a submissive position relative to the teacher because they share the same goal: acquiring knowledge and skills. This is a prime moment for abuse… But what if, in a religious institution, submission is not used for religious purposes at all? Instead, it serves as a means of developing a complex psychological situation in which the submissive individual becomes dependent on a powerful protector for existential security, creating a kind of pleasure in subjugation. This, in turn, leads to impaired judgment, which has no practical applicability outside the religious institution, rendering the individual isolated and without choices. This psychological shaping drives the victim into deeper isolation and abnormality.
The need for subjugation and absolute dependence is what psychologists identify as a “masochistic character structure,” where the pleasure is greater the more complex the “milieu of arguments” becomes, regardless of the fantastical “connective tissue” that binds such groups in a masochistic rapture, pulling them further from reality and making meaningful societal engagement nearly impossible. This is why the international community often views certain behaviors in our society with disbelief and astonishment.
Analyzing this “unseen marvel,” we should not dwell solely on the privileges enjoyed by a select few who exploit the obedience of their zealous followers. Otherwise, we risk missing the broader picture—the roots of such deviant behavior, which increasingly transcend politics and delve into the realm of highly problematic social dynamics and even more concerning mental health conditions.
Psychologists view “masochistic perversion” as a form of “general psychological behavior,” which arises from the weakening of an individual’s ability to manifest “normal aggression,” which is essential for actively asserting one’s needs. The phrase “normal aggression” has been stretched to justify a wide range of actions throughout history, as tragically demonstrated by the events following the breakup of former Yugoslavia. In the preparatory period, this concept was deeply rooted in a mythical—not purely religious—consciousness that was prone to distorted reasoning. It became so elastic that it “justified” aggressive tendencies, even leading to mass atrocities.
(Example: In 1995, the Serbian Orthodox Church lost a lawsuit in Paris after filing claims against the newspapers Libération, Le Monde, and Le Figaro for articles accusing it of supporting ethnic cleansing and genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina.)
This kind of aggression escalated into mass hysteria in the early 1990s and persisted until it was curbed by NATO military intervention. However, it did not disappear psychologically; its drive for self-realization can still be seen in the need for self-punishment, servility, and submissiveness—or in the political-religious masochistic perversion, which, despite its unhealthy gratification, brings significant material benefits to individuals within religious communities. As a result, the ultimate picture appears as a completely “normal” state of affairs, because at various levels—social, religious, political, and cultural—there exists a rationale for its existence. This “rationale” gains even more strength in a system where social values are utterly distorted, in which anomalies are even rewarded with high ecclesiastical titles and positions—something we reluctantly witness amid open church-related sexual and pedophilic scandals, which rarely shock the public anymore.
However, we must be cautious when seeking only masochistic elements in such behavior because it also contains sadistic elements. Masochism involves renouncing personal happiness, suffering, and enduring pain to the point where it brings pleasure. Sadism, on the other hand, has the opposite goal: making someone a subject of one’s own will and absolute control, coercing them into suffering, which, in turn, brings satisfaction to the sadist! This kind of relationship leads to tragic outcomes, as in the case of the seminary student Milić Blažinović, whose tragic fate was described by Father Bojan Jovanović in his book How We Killed God!
Totalitarian societies—unfortunately, including those influenced by clerical-nationalist movements, as seen in Montenegro in recent years—are fertile ground for such sadomasochistic tendencies. They cultivate and satisfy needs based on such emotional tendencies, which, according to psychologists, correlate with a weakening and absence of heterosexual identity. Such societies, whether religious or secular, create a sense of protection, security, and self-sufficiency, within which resistance is nearly absent—except in episodic cases. Eventually, they project their own distortions onto centers of power. How do we “decontaminate” or heal the diseased social fabric, which has already begun to feel comfortable in this horror and perceives it as a natural state of affairs? How do we counteract an indifferent societal stance that allows such behavior to gain full “political” and “legal” legitimacy? I will conclude by saying that as Christian communities, we will be taken more seriously if we approach this and other issues with greater seriousness and organization—if we are recognized through our actions as a respectable force that could bring our unfortunate situation to a state in which faith truly becomes a path to personal liberation, based on Christian goodwill and understanding. In this process, reasoning must never be called into question, for the Almighty has granted us the great gift of deciding our own destiny based on Christian values.
To realize all this in the right way, the foundations must be pure and entirely healthy!
Danilo Brajović, civic activist
Dear ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely pleased to take part in this conference; I convey my greetings from Cetinje, Montenegro, which is perhaps the most extreme example in the region today, of how faith and the right to profess one’s religion can turn into some kind of fundamentalism.
First, as an ethnic Montenegrin, a supporter of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church in whose work I actively participated, an atheist, I want to dedicate a few words to my clear determination that the right to profess one’s religion belongs to the corpus of basic human rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 18) and the European Convention on Human Rights (Article 9), among other international documents.
When you look at the situation in Montenegro from the outside, everything looks ideal. Nevertheless, before the eyes of Europe, an attempt is being made to assimilate the Montenegrin people and incorporate them into the Serbian national corps.
Perhaps it is to blame that the Montenegrins, who are the most numerous nation (according to the last census held last year), are not organized into their own national party, but that is not the topic of this conference. The interpretation of the results of the census is a matter of statistics but also of evil intent, because we have justified criticism that the results of the census make it clear that Montenegrins are the majority, above 50 percent in Montenegro. Which is not a problem because ethnic Montenegrins, even the most stubborn ones, see Montenegro in the future as a state of equal citizens and not as a national state. Even during the time when Montenegro was a Kingdom, the confessional harmony and tolerance of the majority of the Orthodox population towards other religions in Montenegro was a highlight.
Therefore, the right to religion is unquestionable, but whether religion can threaten the rights of others is highly questionable. Where the rights of one group begin to threaten the rights of anyone – freedom ends.
This is exactly what is happening in Montenegro. In order to fully explain my thesis, I have to go back in time: The Berlin Congress held in 1872 was a key moment in European diplomacy for Montenegro. It is recognized as an independent state, along with other states, and its state structure is established with the Constitution of the Principality of Montenegro from 1905. In 1918, Montenegro was enslaved by Serbia, and the Montenegrin Church was extinguished and merged with the Serbian Church.
Today, the Church of Serbia, known as the “Serbian Orthodox Church”, is the transmitter and guardian of the ideology that ignited the former Yugoslavia in the nineties, and its basic elements are: “All Serbs should live in one state.” “Serbs are threatened”. The story of what is current today in Montenegro begins in 1989, with Amfilohi Radović becoming the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro. An analysis of the census in Montenegro from then to today shows that the number of people who identify themselves as Serbs has risen from 3 to 30 percent. It is obvious that this is a special assimilation war that the SPC is doing on the ground. The blame for this assimilation also lies with the government at the time, which knew what was happening but did not want to stand in the way of it.
However, since the change of the multi-decade government in Montenegro that took place in 2020, the story is moving in a different direction. Burning flow! In parliamentary elections, with the help of voters from the surrounding area who illegally have Montenegrin citizenship, power is won by a majority, whose spiritus movens was the SPC and its litigants. Litija, a political movement that started in February 2020.
From then until today, governments change, but not the constituents of the government, which makes its nature, regardless of the sweet talk about efforts to enter the EU, what it really is: Installed, nationalist, Great Serbian, determined to assimilate the Montenegrins at the end of its planned plan, and preferably to eliminate Montenegro as a state.
This is exactly what is happening now, and in front of the eyes of the world.
If you follow the situation in Montenegro, no one from other confessions, Muslims, Catholics, disputes anyone’s rights, only the SPC deals with erasing and appropriating the history of Montenegrins. They know how to humiliate other peoples in Montenegro from time to time, but Montenegrins almost every day.
Instead of preaching faith, they are an extension of the nationalist assimilationist project that began in the early nineties and continues today. All this is part of the agenda that was written a long time ago and is called “Nachertanije”, and they are working according to that agenda.
Their leader, Joanikije, periodically sends messages that offend the feelings of ethnic Montenegrins, and these are the people whose ancestors built the religious buildings that today have been occupied by the Serbian Orthodox Church, claiming them as their own? And now we come to the thesis from the beginning of my address, which is – how much freedom does religion have, that is, we come to the conclusion that the right to profess one’s religion can be limited when it starts to threaten the rights of others or the public interest. For example:
If religious practice is used for discrimination, hate speech or violence against others. There we have the example of the former head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose name was Amfilohije, who was convicted in the first instance for hate speech in 2012. His statements about Muslims and Catholics were offensive.
The current head of the Church of Serbia in Montenegro is under investigation by the Special State Prosecutor, because of the documents provided by Mr. Bojan Jovanović, specifically because of covering up pedophilia and even more serious charges. This case is getting more difficult, and who knows if it will get its epilogue. Conclusion:
The Constitution of Montenegro from 1915 clearly defines the status of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is a registered religious community in Montenegro: I quote: “The Montenegrin Church is autocephalous”.
The Montenegrin Orthodox Church was rebuilt in 1993, in Cetinje, in which I took a part. Today, it is registered as a religious community in Montenegro, according to the law that defines religious communities and their rights.
Today and all the time since the restoration of the Montenegrin Church, the priests of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church do not have access to Montenegrin religious buildings, because the Church of Serbia installed in Montenegro does not allow it.
Is it freedom of religion or endangering the rights of others, in this case – Orthodox Montenegrins? Judge for yourself.
