Montenegrin Orthodox Church - Montenegrin Autocephaly

Montenegrin Autocephaly

Montenegrin church was both before and after 1766 outside the canon and the actual organizational structure and scope and Serbian Peć and Constantinople Patriarchy.

MOC considers itself to be the sole legitimate representative of Orthodox Christianity in Montenegro. MOC also lays claim to all Orthodox Christian property in Montenegro that is in possession of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). From time to time, MOC's members and supporters have attempted to claim some of these structures (mostly in the Cetinje municipal area).

Montenegrin Orthodox Church was founded in Cetinje on October 31, 1993, by Antonije Abramović and Liberal Alliance of Montenegro (LSCG), a political party that existed at the time. At the time, Montenegro was part of the federal state with Serbia called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which was formed a year earlier following a 1992 referendum. LSCG, a party with a separatist agenda that had independent Montenegro as its aim, essentially used MOC in their overall political fight for Montenegrin sovereignty. Since none of this was supported at the time by the Montenegrin ruling regime embodied in Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro (DPS), which during that period maintained close ties to Milošević's regime in Serbia, initial MOC's activities were very sporadic. For about 4 years it functioned without any official record of its existence.

By 1997, the DPS regime in Montenegro led by Milo Đukanović began to distance itself from Milošević and Serbia, and MOC was registered in the Montenegrin police as a civic group. (Therefore appeared the name "NGO MPC" for NGO Montenegrin Police Church). By this time, LSCG had mostly distanced itself from MOC completely. On January 17, 2001, MOC was officially registered as a non-governmental organization at the local department of the Montenegrin Ministry of the Interior.

In the absence of any other relevant and more current piece of legislation, this registration was done by calling on the Law on the Legal Position of Religious Communities from 1977 when Montenegro was a socialist republic within SFR Yugoslavia.

In 2007, MOC attempted to expand its activities beyond the borders of Montenegro. Serbia originally refused to allow MOC to be registered as an organization, as all official Orthodox Churches have also refused to recognize the MOC. However, on appeal, the Serbian Supreme Court ruled this position unconstitutional, overturning the refusal and paving the way for a potential permission to register.