The Serbian Parliament to Examine a Church Property Restitution Legislation

The National Assembly of Serbia is to examine a draft law, according to which the Serbian Orthodox Church and other religious bodies may be receive back their properties confiscated under the Communist regime.

According to the Restitution of the Property of Churches and Religious Organizations draft law, possessions of Serbian religious bodies taken away by the Communist government after 1945 should be given back as a full property or rewarded in equivalent money.

Nenad Ilic, a representative of the Ministry of International Economic Relations of Serbia, who has drafted the law, hopes it will be discussed in the Parliament by the end of the week.

If the National Assembly passes the law in May it will come into force on the 1^st of October 2006. Accordingly, the restitution programme will have to be complete by the 30^th of September 2008.

After the World War II the Serbian Orthodox Church lost 93 per cent of its property including 1176 buildings of which 50 are in Belgrade. Some 70,000 hectares of farming lands were confiscated too. ‘If the restitutions is undertaken, the injustice will end’, a Serbian Church secretariat representative said.