Serbia

From Wikipedia

The Nazarene form of Protestant Christianity, known as the Apostolic Christian Church in North America, appeared among Serbs during the 1860s in the region of Vojvodina, which in that time was administered by the Austrian Empire (renamed to Austria-Hungary in 1867). The religious group also spread to what was then the Principality of Serbia as early as in 1872.

Due to their commitment to non-violence and refusal to carry weapons and serve in the army, the Nazarenes were persecuted and imprisoned by all three state authorities under which they lived: the pre-World War I Austro-Hungarian and Serbian and post-World War I Serb-Croat-Slovene (i.e. Yugoslav). In 1892, most of 210 prisoners in Pest who were imprisoned because they refused to carry weapons were Serbs from Bačka.[2]

During the last two decades of the 19th century, a sizable Nazarene communities were formed in several (mostly ethnic Serb) settlements in Vojvodina: Melenci, Dolovo, Mokrin, Lokve, Mramorak, Padina, Debeljača, Bavanište, Banatski Karlovac, Perlez, and Banatsko Novo Selo. Larger Nazarene communities were also present in some sizable cities of the region, such are Sombor, Novi Sad, Pančevo, and Veliki Bečkerek. The settlement with largest percentage of Nazarenes among population was the Serb village of Nadalj (in the end of the 19th century, 250 of total number of 2,000 villagers were Nazarenes).[3]

According to 1891 census, there was 6,829 Nazarenes in the Kingdom of Hungary (one of two parts of Austria-Hungary), of which 4,400 were Serbs (the presented numbers did not include territory of autonomous Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia).[4] According to an unofficial estimation from 1897, there were 9,000–10,000 Nazarene Serbs in the Kingdom of Hungary and 1,000 more in the Kingdom of Serbia and Bosnia.[5]

According to 1925 police report, there were 16,652 adult Nazarenes in 352 settlements in Bačka, Banat, Syrmia and Baranja. The largest number of them were Serbs (7,971), while others were Slovaks (3,336), Hungarians (2,144), Romanians (1,537), Germans (986), Croats (669), Bulgarians (44), and Czechs (4).[6] According to 1953 census, there were 15,650 Nazarenes in Yugoslavia.[7]

In 1924, Serb-Croat-Slovene authorities arrested more than 2,000 Nazarenes who refused to carry weapons.[8] Between 1927 and 1933, there was 80% Serbs among Nazarenes who were imprisoned in Yugoslav prisons, while during the 1960s about 65% of imprisoned Nazarenes were Serbs.[9]

According to unofficial research that was conducted during the 1980s, there were 15,000 Nazarenes in Vojvodina who lived in 170 communities and 96% of them were Serbs.[10]

Although the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century were periods in which Nazarene religious group was widely spread among Serbs, later parts of the 20th century recorded certain decline of the Nazarene community. The decline of the community had various reason: many members of the community emigrated across the ocean and settled in the United States and Canada, some of the Nazarenes who originally were of Eastern Orthodox background converted back to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, while others converted to other Protestant denominations. Since World War I, the largest Protestant community among Serbs became the Adventists.[11]

In 2002, 1,426 citizens of Serbia declared themselves in census as a members of Nazarene community.[12] Seat of the Nazarene community in Serbia is in Novi Sad.