USTAV SRPSKE PRAVOSLAVNE CRKVE OD 1947. GODINE

Abstract

After the end of the Second World War, the Serbian Orthodox Church found itself in new social and political circumstances, but also in the legal system of socialist Yugoslavia, which was significantly different from the legal system of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In 1946, the new communist government adopted the Constitution of the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia, which, among other things, standardized the relationship between the Church and the state. On the territory of the newly formed socialist Yugoslavia, which had just come out of the war, the war against the Serbian Orthodox Church was still raging. From the positions of the new state authorities, liquidations and persecution of bishops, priests and believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church were carried out. Several laws were adopted that were directly directed against the Serbian Orthodox Church and other traditional churches and religious communities. The Law on the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1931 was repealed by the decision of the new communist government, as well as all other regulations that were passed until April 6, 1941. The Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church could not be convened in a regular or extraordinary session in wartime conditions and due to the imprisonment of Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo (Dožić). On November 14, 1946, Patriarch Gavrilo returned to the country and assumed his patriarchal duties. The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, under the presidency of Patriarch Gavrilo, convened the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church for the first regular session after six years of being prevented from convening the highest church body. The session of the Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church was held from April 24 to May 21, 1947 in Belgrade. Although there is a belief that amendments to the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1931 were adopted at that session or that the "Constitution was changed", based on the relevant archival material and on the basis of the formal-legal element of this general ecclesiastical-legal act, it is established that The Holy Synod of Bishops, regardless of the numerous norms that have been retained from the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church since 1931, actually adopted the new Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The subject of this work is the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church from 1947, which is still in force in the Serbian Orthodox Church today.