Beyond his work in canonical and ecclesiastical law, was dedicated in countering Catholic proselytism and state efforts which downplayed the Serbian Orthodox heritage.
However, in some of his historiographical writings portrayed the two denominations in a black-and-white manner and fabricated certain historical statements about the history of the Orthodox Church, which was used during the rise of Serbian nationalism and breakup of SFR Yugoslavia.
[4] Because of his fluency in German, French, Italian, Russian, as well as Greek and Latin, he was able to read primary sources and contribute to the field of history.
[5][4] His most valuable historical work Documenta spectantia historiam ortodoxae dioeceseos Dalmatiae et Istriae a XV usque ad XIX saeculum (vol.
[4] With the on-going Croat-Serb Coalition (1905), Milaš rejected to participate at the so-called Zadar Resolution (14 November 1905), possibly due to his rising unwelcoming attitude towards Croats, as expressed in Orthodox Dalmatia few years ago.
[4] Such retirement was an uncommon event, and is considered that was caused by scandal surrounding the prolonged embezzlement of great amount of money of various funds (academic, school, construction and maintenance) and other goods of the Orthodox municipality.
[1] In late 1911 the administrative board of the Orthodox priest association of the Dalmatian eparchy published a circulaire, which Milaš received in January 1912, in which blamed and held him morally responsible for the loses, and that according to the people's statements, the priesthood from Zadar talked of embezzlement as early as 1901.
[14] Milaš produced a number of collections of canonical texts and was particularly interested in the churches of North Africa in the Roman period.
[14] He translated The Constitution (Syntagma) of the Divine and Sacred Canons by Rallis and Potlis, and placed his commentaries in the context of previous Biblical hermeneutic works.
[1][2][18][19] According to Croatian historian Stjepan Antoljak (2004), it is "tendentiously" written, and "the goal of this book was clear and full of unverified claims and fabrications, which even today are not fully noticed and not pointed out, and not completely refuted",[3] while the Serbian historian Tibor Živković (2004), concluded that "his work for the time period is very poor in valid scientific apparatus and burdened with the writer's stated goal contained in the very title of his work" and that the "assessment of Milaš's book Orthodox Dalmatia was given in 1903 by Jovan Radonić, so its place in historiography has long been established and there is no need to recall all the shortcomings of that work".
[5] With the work inspired and guided by an idea of forever existing intolerance of Serb Orthodoxy in Dalmatia,[25] Milaš was highly critical and made heavy accusations against the pope and Roman church,[2] claiming that the Croats initially were Orthodox Christians, and sacral heritage of Split was part of Serbian Orthodox heritage as well.
[1][18] As summarized by Vjekoslav Perica, "Milaš views the religious history of Dalmatia and Croatia as a history of hatred and intolerance of ethnic Serbs under Venetian and Austria rule",[21] and "laid the foundations of Serbian ecclesiastical historiography (which coincides with the nationalist perspective in the secular Serbian historiography) on the assumption that Serbs and Croats were ethnically the same people, predetermined to form a unified Slavic (Orthodox) nation, had the popes not intervened and prevented these two fraternal Slavic peoples from becoming all Greek Orthodox".
Croatian church historians Stanko Bačić and Mile Bogović have contended that the re-priting of such ideas was used as argument and justification for Serbian politics during the Yugoslav Wars.
[1][19][a] As did Sabrina P. Ramet,[27][28] and Emil Hilton Saggau also noted how his work echoed in the "many classic Serbian historical arguments used during the war in Croatia and Bosnia".