Croatian Orthodox Church - The Croatian Orthodox Church 1942-1945

The Croatian Orthodox Church 1942-1945

Croat Orthodox Church was created, to be considered one of the three faiths to which Croats could officially belong (the main being Catholicism and Islam). To try to get conversions to this church, some incentives were given. Since one of the Serbians motto for the invasion in Croatia was a "Religious" reason, the creation of this Church was leaving with no pretexts for war.

Its leader was Germogen, Metropolitan of Zagreb, a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, who is said to have had Uniate sympathies. Most of the church's priests were Serbian priests who were compelled to change churches in order to survive, together with defrocked Orthodox priests, émigré priests from Russia, and some Uniate and Roman Catholic priests.

The church was formed by a government statute (No. XC-800-Z-1942) on April 4, 1942. On June 5, using the statute issued by the government, the church's constitution was passed. On June 7 Germogen became the only Orthodox Metropolitan of Zagreb. The church lasted until the NDH collapsed, as the Serbians destroyed it. Germogen was shot to death the same day by Serbians.

The reasons for the creation of this Church was to make a concession to the Serbian population, as some in the Ustasha leadership felt this would decrease the will to rebel in Serbs. Another main reason was an attempt among some Croats to distinguish between Serbian nationality and Orthodox faith, as a sign of respect to the founders of the Party of Rights from which the Ustasha movement developed. The Ustasha evolved from this party's extremist wing after the King of Yugoslavia banned all political parties in 1929, and murdered Croatian politic Stjepan Radic . The two main founders of the Party of Rights, Ante Starčević and Eugen Kvaternik, were not antagonistic towards Orthodoxy, although they were to a large degree anti-Serb, leaving a clear statement those two are two different things, being Serbian and being Orthodox. Ante Starčević's mother was Orthodox, and Kvaternik had promoted in the early days of the party the creation of an Orthodox Patriarch in Croatia.

Before the Croatian Orthodox Church was formed, the NDH officially described the Eastern Orthodox Church as the "Greek-Eastern Church", and would refer to it as the "Schismatic Church" or the "Greek non-Uniate Church". The Ustasha wanted to make their church legitimate; they asked for recognition from the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul.