Assoc. Prof. Krassimira Mutafova, RELIGIONS AND RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS ON THE BALKANS

 Summary

D

uring the last decades the Balkans has turned into one of the hottest points in Europe. The number of conflicts, followed by the foundation of new countries and politics and sociologist are still trying to find the reason for the new political map of European southeast.One of the main points that are going to be discussed in my lecture is whether and how religion, and especially the religious and ethnical changes on the Balkan peninsula in historical aspect and their contemporary projections, directly or indirectly reflect on the "degree of tension".

The other highlights of the lecture (having rather general title) are:

1.      The positions taken by the monotheistic religions on the Balkans up to the Ottoman invasion according to their official recognition and “delegated” priorities, the Byzantine missionary work and religious emancipation of the Balkan states, the relationship "East - West" / Catholicism and Orthodoxy;

2.      The new ethno-confessional situation on the Balkans during the Ottoman domination and the change in the balance religious – ethnical identity will be outlined in the context of:

-         changes in the positions of the traditional monotheistic religions after the Ottoman conquest;

-         law regulation of the relations with the "infidels". Some of the discussed problems which are related to the religious institutions of the officially recognized religious communities within the framework of the Millet system will be reviewed on the basis of recently found and translated Ottoman archival material from the so called “Piscopos kalemi”/lit. chancellery for Episcopal matters;

-         The Catholic propaganda, the traditional religious communities in the Balkans during the 16^th – 17^th centuries, and the communities with "interim" status;

3.      The Islam (“orthodox” and “heterodox”) and the Islamic religious institutions on the Balkans are represented as an inseparable part of the establishment of the Ottoman rule and the new confessional situation, with priority positions not of the Christianity, but of the Islam. In the light of the still “open” discussions on Turk colonization and the process of Islamization of the local Balkan population has been set one of the major issues related to the new confessional picture of the Balkan peninsula – the way in which Islamic enclaves are formed.

4.      The centers of religious life in the confessional communities - Muslim and non-Muslim - have been considered as an expression of dominance, formalized status and the center of the religious life of the marginal communities. Special attention is paid to the so called utraquistic/ dual sanctuaries, as an expression of specific dual code of coexistence of Muslims and Christians.

One of the main conclusions that I have made as a result of the my long-lasting research work on these issues is that not irrelevant for the modern ethnic and religious situation on the Balkans is the fact that up to the Ottoman invasion and the final conquest of the medieval Balkan states in the late 15^thcentury, and despite the persistent and earnest efforts of the papacy to impose Catholicism on the Balkans, the Crusades and the emergence of the Latin Empire, the Orthodoxy has preserved its priorities on the on the Balkan peninsula.