page_title: Serbian culture
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Serbian culture / Life / Religion
context_page_description: Serbian culture refers to the culture of Serbia and of ethnic Serbs.
  The Byzantine Empire had a great influence on the culture; Serbs were initially governing the Byzantine and Frankish frontiers in the name of the emperors and were later through their sworn alliance given independence, baptized by Greek missionaries and adopted the Cyrillic script, with Latin and Catholic influences in the southern regions. The Serbian Orthodox Church gained autocephaly from Constantinople in 1219, whereas Stefan the First Crowned was declared king by the Pope. The Republic of Venice influenced the maritime regions in the Middle Ages. The Ottoman Empire conquered Serbia in 1459 and ruled the territory for several centuries, the consequences of which suppressed Serbian culture but also greatly influenced Serbian Art, especially in the southern regions. Meanwhile, in northern regions Habsburg Monarchy expanded into modern Serbian territory starting from the end of the 17th century, culturally bounding this part of the nation to Central Europe rather than Balkans.
context_section_description: Conversion of the South Slavs from Slavic paganism to Christianity began in the early 7th century, long before the Great Schism, the split between the Greek Orthodox East and the Roman Catholic West, the Serbs were first Christinaized during the reign of Heraclius (610–641) but were fully Christianized by Eastern Orthodox Missionaries (Saints) Cyril and Methodius in 869 during Basil I, who sent them after Knez Mutimir, had acknowledged the suzerainty of the Byzantine Empire. After the Schism, those who lived under the Byzantine sphere of influence became Orthodox and those who lived under the Roman sphere of influence became Catholic. Later, with the arrival of the Ottoman Empire, one part of Serbs converted to Islam. Their modern descendants are considered to be members of the Gorani and Bosniak ethnic groups.
  The Serbian Orthodox Church was the westernmost bastion of the Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Europe, which shaped its historical fate through contacts with Catholicism and Islam.
  During World War II, the Serbs, living in a wide area, were persecuted by various peoples and organizations. The Catholic Croats within the Independent State of Croatia recognized the Serbs only as "Croats of the Eastern Greek faith" and had the ideological vision that 1/3 of the Serbs were to be murdered, 1/3 were to be converted and the last third expelled. The outcome of these visions was the death of at least 700,000 people, the religious conversion of 250,000 and the expulsion of 250,000.
caption: The White Angel, 1235
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