Uses and Abuses of Religion in the Contemporary Legal Development of Montenegro: Undermining the Principle of Secularity

Abstract

In the context of contemporary legal and political development, this work aims to analyze, through the prism of the constitutional principles of secularism and the civic state, the growing influence of religion on politics in Montenegro which has indirectly caused tectonic changes in the current legal relationship between the state and religious communities, at least temporarily questioning these everlasting values of constitutional democracy. Our basic hypothesis is that, in this correlation between the state and the Orthodox Church, religion is being used not only as a belief system which primarily belongs to the spiritual sphere of individuals, but also as a tool in redefining national identity and achieving politically desirable results at the public level. In the interpretation of positive legal regulations, this paper predominantly uses teleological and normative methodology together with sociological and axiological methods, necessary for understanding the broader context of the widened scope of bonding between religion and politics. This paper is also accompanied by relevant literature, which is promising in terms of solving the very interesting issues which once belonged to the “spirits of the past” and yet in the twenty-first century have been modernized at the place where the internal legal order of Montenegro and the Orthodox Church meet.

Keywords

• national identity
• constitutional identity
• state-church relationship
• intertwining religion and politics
• secularism