Protestantism in Serbia
Protestants are the 4th largest religious group in Serbia, after Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Muslims.
In the 2011 census, there were 71,284 Protestants in Serbia (excluding the territory of Kosovo) and they comprised 1% of the population of the country.
Outside Vojvodina, sizable concentration of Protestants in the rest of the country are recorded in Leskovac (2,493) and Belgrade (1,606).
[1] There are various Protestant groups in the country, including Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists and Evangelical Baptists (Nazarene).
Prior to the end of World War II, the number of Protestants in the region was larger.
Protestantism (mostly in its Nazarene form) started to spread among Serbs in Vojvodina in the last decades of the 19th century.
Due to their commitment to non-violence and refusal to carry weapons and serve in the army, the Nazarenes were persecuted and imprisoned by all three state authorities under which they lived: the pre-World War I Austro-Hungarian and Serbian and post-World War I Serb-Croat-Slovene (i.e. Yugoslav).
[2] During the last two decades of the 19th century, a sizable Nazarene communities were formed in several (mostly ethnic Serb) settlements in Vojvodina: Melenci, Dolovo, Mokrin, Lokve, Mramorak, Padina, Debeljača, Bavanište, Banatski Karlovac, Perlez, and Banatsko Novo Selo.
Larger Nazarene communities were also present in some sizable cities of the region, such are Sombor, Novi Sad, Pančevo, and Veliki Bečkerek.
[5] According to 1925 police report, there were 16,652 adult Nazarenes in 352 settlements in Bačka, Banat, Syrmia and Baranja.
The largest number of them were Serbs (7,971), while others were Slovaks (3,336), Hungarians (2,144), Romanians (1,537), Germans (986), Croats (669), Bulgarians (44), and Czechs (4).
The decline of the community had various reason: many members of the community emigrated across the ocean and settled in the United States and Canada, some of the Nazarenes who originally were of Eastern Orthodox background converted back to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, while others converted to other Protestant denominations.
Subsequently, the Adventist communities were formed in Titel, Novo Miloševo and Mokrin (in 1906), Kikinda (in 1907), Belgrade and Novi Kneževac (in 1909), Zemun (in 1910), etc.
[14] The Christian Adventist Church also founded a mailing Bible school, which during the existence of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had about 4,000 students in Serbo-Croatian (3,000 in Cyrillic and 1,000 in Latin script), and about 500–1,000 students in Hungarian, Slovene and Macedonian per year.
Formerly, the largest number of the adherents was of German ethnicity, while today members of the church are Slovaks, Serbs, Hungarians, Romani, etc.
Most of the adherents are situated in Vojvodina, mainly in Novi Sad, Žabalj and Stara Pazova.
The seat of this religious community was in Karanovci (in the Varvarin municipality, Rasina District), but since 2009, it is located in Sremska Mitrovica.
One part of the adherents of this church are some members of the Roma ethnic community from southern Serbia.
[27] The Church of Christ the Saviour was founded recently and it is probably the youngest religious community in Novi Sad.
The Slovak Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Serbia has its seat in Novi Sad.
Until the end of the World War II, one number of the ethnic Germans of Vojvodina were adherents of this church.
Until the end of the World War II, one number of the ethnic Germans of Vojvodina were adherents of this church.
