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Religious belief in MontenegroThe Serbian and Montenegrin Orthodox churches (two different denominations) claim to be the religion of the people but this claim is a farce and and a tragedy.
What is extraordinarily sad is that many of the Serbian Orthodox leaders are just like the Pharisees of whom Jesus said, "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from men; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in." (Matt. 23:13) So many Serbian Orthodox leaders do not preach the Gospel; they do not call Montenegrins to faith and repentance, they do not teach the love of Christ, but they do call biblical Christians a "sect" and liken us to Satanists and tell people not to listen to us. It is so sad that many Montenegrins listen to this kind of propaganda. Please pray that God would open the eyes of Montenegrins to see the Gospel and the lies of those who would hinder them. Please pray that the mouths of those who speak lies would be shut and that their lies would be ineffectual.
Many people were raised during the period of communism and have not heard of the Gospel.
There is a Roman Catholic presence primarily on the coast. In all we are encouraged that the Holy Spirit is moving and opening sinners' hearts. Page last updated: August 30 2010 |
The example in Niksic is instructive: The population of the city of Niksic is around 70,000. Around 60% of the
population would claim to be "Orthodox." Yet there is only one Serbian Orthodox church that regularly holds services,
and on any given Lord's Day there will only be around 50 people that attend the whole service. Many who claim to be
Montenegrin or Serbian Orthodox have no idea what the Montenegrin or Serbian Orthodox church teaches and have never
even been inside a Montenegrin or Serbian Orthodox church building.
There is much anti Christian practice, superstition, paganism and occultism. People will claim to be Serbian or
Montenegrin Orthodox believers and will at the same time go to fortune tellers and psychic healers. Ostrog, the most
famous monastery in Montenegro claims to have a piece of the original cross, and the monastery in Cetinje claims to have
a body part of John the Baptist-people will go on pilgrimages to view these relics thinking that they are earning merit.
Many people will not work on imagined "Saints' Days" but disregard the 4th commandment to "Remember the sabbath day, to
keep it holy" by doing all kinds of unnecessary work and completely failing to worship God, thus truly showing that their
traditions have made void the Word of God (Matt. 15:6 . . .And {thus} you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your
tradition.)
About 8% of the population is nominally Muslim. Muslim Montenegrins are concentrated in certain regions where they
form the majority of the poplulation. So in most of Montenegro there are few Muslims while in a few areas they form
the majority of the population.