Three Church-State Arrangements in One Country: Montenegro

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and separates religious communities from the state, but the 2019 property law requiring proof of pre-1918 ownership set the state directly against the Serbian Orthodox Church's claims until a 2022 Basic Agreement recognized the church's continuity and legal standing, ending three years of the largest protests the country had seen since independence. Montenegro also maintains a separate Fundamental Agreement with the Holy See, signed in 2012, regulating the Catholic Church's legal status, property and activity.

Within one small state three different church-state arrangements sit side by side: contested Orthodox recognition resolved only by negotiated settlement, a formal concordat-style agreement with Rome, and ordinary religious freedom guarantees for the Muslim minority with no comparable negotiated instrument of its own. The Ministry of Education's direct grants to private religious schools, including roughly 900,000 euros to a Serbian Orthodox secondary school and roughly 500,000 euros to a madrassah in Tuzi, extend material support unevenly across that same three-part settlement.