Pray for Serbia

For centuries, battle has swept through Serbia’s capital, Belgrade — giving rise to the saying, “destroyed and rebuilt dozens of times.” Throughout the years, this landlocked nation has undergone Ottoman rule, Austro-Hungarian and World War conflicts, Yugoslav wars, and NATO bombing. After World War II, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Macedonia were collectively known as Yugoslavia. In the 1990s, the breakup of Yugoslavia led to a series of civil wars. Territorial disputes and ethnic tensions between Serbs, Croats, and Bosnians led to economic collapse, millions of displaced people, and hundreds of thousands of deaths across former Yugoslavia.

Following decades of communist rule and the wars of the 1990s, Serbia has worked to rebuild its economy. Still, the nation has lower wages than other Western European countries, and many workers leave the nation in search of job opportunities, resulting in a lack of skilled workers. Corruption discourages some foreign companies from doing business in Serbia, while public money is sometimes wasted or misused. The government has also increased its control, attacking journalists and using excessive force and tear gas against protesters. There are longstanding tensions between Serbia and Kosovo (which was once part of Serbia) over Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which Serbia does not recognize. NATO peacekeepers maintain a safe environment, yet occasional incidents of violence occur along the nations’ border.

For most Serbians, ethnicity and religion go hand-in-hand. More than 70 percent of the population identifies as Christian, with the majority belonging to the Eastern Orthodox Church. Protestantism has historically influenced Hungarian and Slovak minorities, but its impact on Serbs has been minimal. Evangelical churches must register with the government in order to own property, facing more restrictions than churches classified as “traditional.” Relations between Christians and Muslims are strained in some areas, with occasional incidents of vandalism and hostility. But despite deep divisions, there is a small but growing body of evangelical believers.