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Landowner Wins Dispute, Serbian Orthodox Christian Church Demolished

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SARAJEVO – An church Orthodox Christian Serbia built on a woman’s land Bosnia near Srebrenica has been destroyed by local authorities under a court order. It ended decades of legal disputes dating back to the 1992-1995 Bosnian War.

Local authorities used cranes to remove the cross from the top of the white church dome, then opened the minaret to lower and store the bell on Saturday local time. A backhoe was used to knock down the building, turning it into rubble as quoted from Russia Today, Sunday (6/6/2021).

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in October 2019 that the local Republika Srpska government should demolish the church and pay 31,000 Euros in compensation to the family of plaintiff Fata Orlovic. The church was built in 1998, two years before Orlovic returned to his village. His family was expelled to Srebrenica along with other Muslim residents of Konjevic Polje during the war.

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The 1995 Dayton Peace Accord ended the war and guaranteed the return of land to refugees. Orlovic, whose husband was killed in the Srebrenica massacre, returned to his property in 2000. He found an Orthodox church in what used to be his yard. She refused to accept money as compensation for the church site and urged her children to never sell the land.

Orlovic then took the matter to court, and his case went viral after being widely publicized and politicized.

The US State Department has included the Orlovic case in its annual report on international religious freedom for Bosnia and Herzegovina, while mainstream Western media has dubbed the building an “illegal Serbian church.”

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Orlovic’s daughter Hurija Karic on Saturday called the destruction of the church a victory for her mother and her entire family and all of Bosnia-Herzegovina in comments to RFE/RL.

The local government is reportedly planning to rebuild the church at the village entrance. Bosnia-Herzegovina remains ethnically divided between predominantly Orthodox Christian Serbs, Muslim-majority Bosnians and Catholic-majority Croats. The government is divided between Republika Srpska and the Muslim-Croatian Federation.

(ian)

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