Сербское православие как сторона, фактор и предмет культурных войн

Abstract

The article defines Orthodoxy as an essential component of Serbian spirituality and national identity. Nowadays, Orthodoxy and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) have become simultaneously a party, factor and subject of cultural wars waged on a global level between traditionalists/patriots, on the one hand, and globalists/universalists/ultra-liberals, on the other (A. C. Webb). A cultural war is understood as an irreconcilable conflict between parties that transmit opposing values that affect the spirituality, mentality and identity of individuals, as well as entire peoples and civilizations. It demonstrates both the unacceptability of Orthodoxy for globalism and the globalist desire to subjugate it, deform it and use it in its own interests. The SOC is an active party in this conflict, being both the guardian and defender of Serbian spirituality. Its position is complicated by the course of the “third way between East and West” of the Serbian authorities, oriented towards European integration, and the extremely aggravated situation with the ancestral home of Serbian spirituality – Kosovo and Metohija. Negative trends are associated with the policy of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, which seeks to limit the influence of the SOC with the Republic of Serbia and establish its control over the remaining territories. Representatives of the “other Serbia” present Orthodoxy as outdated, irrelevant for modern people, and even covering up “Serbian chauvinism.” Patriots see in it the basis of Serbian identity and a spiritual bond with the Russian people.