page_title: Religion in Serbia
section_title: Eastern Orthodoxy
hierarchical_section_title: Religion in Serbia / Christianity / Eastern Orthodoxy
caption_attribution_description: English: Crkva Svetog Marka na Tašmajdanu građena je od 1931. do 1940. godine u neposrednoj blizini stare crkve iz 1835. godine, prema planovima arhitekata Petra i Branka Krstića. Oblikovana je u duhu arhitekture srpsko-vizantijskog stila. Po opštem graditeljskom rešenju, arhitektonskim formama i polihromiji fasada, ovaj hramje najsrodniji manastiru Gračanici. Opremanje i ukrašavanje hrama još nije završeno. This is a photo of Cultural Heritage site of Serbia number СК 133
context_page_description: Serbia has been traditionally a Christian country since the Christianization of Serbs by Clement of Ohrid and Saint Naum in the 9th century. The dominant confession is Eastern Orthodoxy of the Serbian Orthodox Church. During the Ottoman rule of the Balkans, Sunni Islam established itself in the territories of Serbia, mainly in southern regions of Raška and Preševo Valley, as well as in the disputed territory of Kosovo and Metohija.
  The Catholic Church has roots in the country since the presence of Hungarians in Vojvodina, while Protestantism arrived in the 18th and 19th century with the settlement of Slovaks in Vojvodina.
context_section_description: Most of the citizens of Serbia are adherents of the Serbian Orthodox Church, while the Romanian Orthodox Church is also present in parts of Vojvodina inhabited by ethnic Romanian minority. Besides Serbs, other Eastern Orthodox Christians include Montenegrins, Romanians, Macedonians,  Bulgarians, Vlachs and majority of Roma people.
  Eastern Orthodox Christianity predominates throughout most of Serbia, excluding several municipalities and cities near border with neighboring countries where adherents of Islam or Catholicism are more numerous as well as excluding two predominantly Protestant municipalities in Vojvodina. Eastern Orthodoxy also predominates in most of the large cities of Serbia, excluding the cities of Subotica (which is mostly Catholic) and Novi Pazar (which is mostly Muslim).
  The identity of ethnic Serbs was historically largely based on Eastern Orthodox Christianity and on the Serbian Orthodox Church, to the extent that there are claims that those who are not its faithful are not Serbs. However, the conversion of the south Slavs from paganism to Christianity took place before the Great Schism, the split between the Greek East and the Latin West. After the Schism, generally speaking, those Christians who lived within the Eastern Orthodox sphere of influence became "Eastern Orthodox" and those who lived within the Catholic sphere of influence, under Rome as the patriarchal see of the West, became "Catholic." Some ethnologists consider that the distinct Serb and Croat identities relate to religion rather than ethnicity. With the arrival of the Ottoman Empire, some Serbs converted to Islam. This was particularly, but not wholly, so in Bosnia. The best known Muslim Serb is probably either Mehmed Paša Sokolović or Meša Selimović. Since the second half of the 19th century, some Serbs converted to Protestantism, while historically some Serbs also were Latin Rite Catholic (especially in Dalmatia) or Eastern Catholic.
caption: St. Mark's Church, Belgrade
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