Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia, "Land of the South Slavs," became a monarchy in 1918, but fell to foreign invasion in World War II. Josip Broz Tito led Partisan resistance, and then broke with the Soviet bloc in 1948 to pursue policies of nonalignment and worker self-management. Large religious groups (Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, Islamic) lost former privileges, by eventually benefited from the society's increasing openness and improved personal liberties.
Traditional religion reinforced ethnic separatism; only the Protestant minority (less than one percent) bridged among numerous ethnic groups. Mennonite involvement began with earthquake relief in Skopje, Macedonia (1963), and contacts with the indigenous Nazarene movement. In the 1970s Eastern Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities (MC) and later Mennonite Central Committee began supporting volunteers for university studies and fraternal relations with other Protestants in the free-church tradition, notably in cooperation with the Biblical Theological Institute of Zagreb (1987-).
Bibliography
Alexander, Stella. Church and State in Yugoslavia since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 1979.
Beeson, Trevor. Discretion and Valour: Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe, 2nd ed. London and Philadelphia: Fount Paperbacks, and Fortress Press, 1982: 288-321.
"Church and Religion in the Self- Managing Society." Socialist Thought and Practice 23 (1983): 60-127.
Grmic, Vekoslav. "Socialism as it Actually Exists in the Light of Christian Theology." Concilium, 154 (1982): 64-69.
Mojzes, Paul. Christian-Marxist Dialogue in Eastern Europe. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981: 128-58.
Shenk, N. Gerald. ''How Should Christians Respond to Communism?" What about the Russians? A Christian Approach to US-Soviet Conflict. Editor: Dale W. Brown. Elgin, IL: The Brethren Press, 1984.
Shenk, N. Gerald. "Social Expectations of Christians in a Marxist State." Mennonite Quarterly Review 55 (1981): 231-239.
Adapted by permission of Herald Press, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, and Waterloo, Ontario, from Mennonite Encyclopedia, Vol. 5, pp. 952. All rights reserved. For information on ordering the encyclopedia visit the Herald Press website.
©1996-2008 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved.
To cite this page:
MLA style: Shenk, N. Gerald. "Yugoslavia." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1989. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 25 July 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/Y84.html>
APA style: Shenk, N. Gerald. (1989). "Yugoslavia." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 25 July 2008 <http://www.gameo.org/encyclopedia/contents/Y84.html>
