Croatian Orthodox Church
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Croatian Orthodox Church was a church in Croatia created during World War II by the Ustasha regime in the Independent State of Croatia. It was meant to be a church into which as many Serbs as possible were forced to convert. This church was not recognized by any Orthodox Church. It served as a front for the Ustasha's in their genocide against Serbs and was canonically unacceptable. This church did not have support from Serbs living in territory controlled by the NDH. The church was formed in 1942 and dissolved in 1945. Its leader was Germogen, the Metropolitan of Zagreb and a defrocked Russian Orthodox priest. This church was meant to have the same aims as the other Uniate churches in Eastern Europe. The church claimed to be the national church of “Croats of Orthodox faith” and was meant to be an incentive for them to declare them selves Croat by allowing them to retain the Eastern Orthodox faith, since other attempts to convert Serbs to Croatdom failed.
The leaders of the Ustasha (Ante Pavelic in particular) said that one third of the Serbs (in the NDH) should be expelled, another third killed, and the final third converted. To do this incentives were given to those who would convert to Croatdom (joining the Catholic church and declaring themselves to be Croatian) which included given them free land and lower taxes. Since this did not draw many conversions a Croat Orthodox Church was created that was to be considered one of the three faiths Croats could be part of (the others being Catholicism and Islam). To try to get conversions to this church similar incentives were given, but also those who were Orthodox were forced to wear white armbands (similar to Jews being forced to where Yellow armbands in some countries) but those who were part of the Croat Orthodox Church wouldn’t have to. The conversions to the Croat Orthodox Church were few. A big reason for the creation of this Church was to make small concessions that some in the Ustasha leadership felt would decrease the will to rebel in Serbs because it would cause them to believe that they were regaining their rights by not rebelling.
The defrocked Russian Orthodox priest Germogen formed the church. He was defrocked for his pro-Catholic sympathies and his beliefs that the Orthodox Churches should become like the Uniate churches. Due to his views some say that he was scouted out to form the church by Cardinal Stepinac. Bishop of Boston and vicar of North America Mirofan (Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia) was a disciple of Germogen. Most of the priests were Serb priests who had to do this to survive, defrocked Orthodox priests, émigré priests from Russia, and some were Uniate and Catholic priests.
The church did not function as a regular church and was meant to be a purely political organization of the Ustasha in order to achieve the goal they had. The Church was meant to be temporary since a goal of the Ustasha regime was establishment of a theocratic catholic state that was purely catholic with in 10 years of the states founding. The church was formed by a government statute (No. XC-800-Z-1942) on April 4th, 1942. On June 5th using the statue issued by the government, the churches constitution was passed. On June 7th Germogen became the 1st and only Orthodox Metropolitan of Zagreb. The church would last until the NDH collapsed, as the Partisans started to take over.
One other possible reason for being formed was as a sign of repect to the founders of the “Party of Rights” (now known as Croatian Party of Rights) from which the Ustasha movement developed. The Ustasha’s evolved from this parties extremist wing after in 1929 the King of Yugoslavia banned all political parties. The two main founders of the Party of Rights (Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik) were not xenophobic towards the Orthodox, although they were to a large degree anti-Serb. Ante Starcevic had a mother who was Orthodox and Kvaternik had promoted in the early days of the party the creation of a Orthodox Patriarch in Croatia.
Before the Croatian Orthodox Church was formed by the Ustasha, the NDH would refer to the Orthodox Church as the “Schismatic Church”, “Greek-Eastern Church” and “Greek non-Uniate Church”. The Ustasha wanted to make the church seem legitimate they asked for recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, but this was almost immediately rejected. The Ustasha had been planning to establish a monastery on Mount Athos to add to their legitimacy had the Ecumenical Patriarch recognized them as being a recognized Orthodox church. The official name the NDH government called the Eastern Orthodox Church prior to the creation of the Croatian Orthodox Church was “Greek Eastern Faith”. These names were given prior to the name Croatian Orthodox Church, because it was meant to show that the Orthodox Church in Croatia would not be controlled or dominated by Serbs.
In the early 1990s during the violence in the Yugoslav wars there was some support by a minority of Croatian nationalist for the recreation of the church. Two of the most prominent supporters of this was the Dean of Theology College in Zagreb, Dr. Adalberto Redic and the Dean of the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Zagreb, Juraj Kolaric. Redic claimed that the war in Bosnia was not a religious war, except for Serbian Orthodox Church which he claimed was naturally aggressive to other religions and that all wars in the former Yugoslavia were its fault. Using this he claimed that the Serbian Orthodox Church should not be allowed to be present in Croatia, and that a Croatian Orthodox Church should be created for those in Croatia whow ere of Orthodox faith.
Juraj Kolaric was reported by the Tanjug news agency as stating that the "Orthodox Church in Croatia should be organized along the Macedonian principle, with its patriarch and break away as far as territory was concerned, from Serbia”. Kolaric had several times tried to start an initiative to start such a church and that it should be started by the "Croat Orthodox believers and possible Croatian Orthodox clergy, because then all the conditions for an autocephalous church would be met." He claimed that if a church was formed it would eventually by recognized by the Patriarch in Constantinople because the Serb Orthodox Church would never be present in Croatia again. Kolaric claimed that his statements were not influenced by the catholic church. The initiatives pf Kolaric for the creation of such a church was protested by the Serbian Orthodox Church several times. Also some members of the Catholic Church in Croatia (such as the archpriest in Zagreb) also protested such an action.
In the 1990s it was reported that Croatian president after Operation Storm was planning to create a Croatian Orthodox Church, because the Serb population had largely left and most churches, monasteries and religious structures in Croatia that were associated with the Orthodox Church lay idle. There is little evidence to support this, since Croatian leadership would have likely known that such an action would be negative on the image of Croatia abroad. The little evidence in support of this, is when HRT (Croatian Radio Television) aired several segments on TV in which they mentioned monasteries in Croatia as belonging to the Croatian Orthodox Church and Dr. Adalberto Redic appearing on a show in which he called for the creation of such a church.
Many believe the reason was that the church was not created in the 1990s is that it had little support, the Ecumenical Patriarch would never recognize, protests by Serbs and the Serb Orthodox Church, after Operation Storm the Croatian authorities would not allow it since mistreatment of Serbs would cause problems with the international community. As well there are few who are Orthodox in Croatia that are not Serbs, and it is unlikely the Serbs would join such a church if it were created.
Some who support the creation of a Croatian Orthodox Church often stated that Orthodox churches were national churches of states and since Croatia was an independent state the Orthodox Church in Croatia should be a national church for Croatia. This however was a fallacy since although largely appear to be nation based, they are supposed to be open to all religions. And as well many opposed to the idea would mention how the Roman Catholic Church was the predominant religion, yet it also was not a national church and was based in the Vatican, yet many who wanted the creation of a Croatian Orthodox Church were opposed to a national Catholic Church.
Some who claim that Montenegro is Red Croatia and should be made part of Croatia, support the creation of a non-extemist Croatian Orthodox Church. A notable example of this was the Ustasha Savic Markovic Stedimlija, who claimed that the people of Montenegro were descendants of the citizens of Dioclatea and were Red Croats. He calimed that Montengro, which means Black Mountain, received its name from Serb occupiers of the state and that despite this Serbian occupation the Montenegrin Orthodox Church was never part of the Serbian Orthodox Church. He uses this claim to say that the church of the Montenegrin people is the Croatian Orthodox Church. Some Croats living in Montenegro support the idea of Red Croatia, and support the Montenegrin Orthodox Church to achieve their goals. Some Serbs see the Montenegrin Orthodox Church as being the present day incarnation of the Croatian Orthodox Church.
