Serbian religion teachers claim rights violated

NEWS 08.07.202212:15
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Orthodox Christian religious education teachers appealed to Serbian state bodies to secure normal conditions for their classes, claiming that parents’ and children’s right to choose was being violated.

Under Serbian law school children have to attend either religious education or civil society classes as an extra-curicular subject. Classes are organized for either subject if sufficient numbers of children enroll. Religious education teachers and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) have complained that their classes are not being organized because of low enrollment as the result of what they claim are efforts to discourage enrollment.

The religious education teachers from the Belgrade-Karlovac Archbishopric said in their public appeal that the law on education allows members of all traditional churches and religious communities to send their children to religious education classes in schools while the constitution guarantees the right of parents to raise their children in line with their beliefs.

“Every attempt to discourage children and their parents from choosing religions classes is a flagrant violation of their rights guaranteed by the constitution and law,” the appeal said and recalled that when the classes were introduced some 20 years ago, they were organized regardless of the number of children enrolled but that under new regulations a minimum of 30 children is required.

“We fear that this is leading to the expulsion of religious education from the Serbian school system, the abolishing of the guaranteed rights of parents and children and the loss of our jobs,” the appeal said.

Earlier, SPC head Patriarch Porfirije spoke out against what he said were reports that headmasters were consciously discouraging and preventing students and parents from choosing religious education.