(Photo: Serbia’s Partiarch Irinej in Belgrade, August 4, 2010/Marko Djurica)

Serbian Orthodox Church and political leaders gather on Sunday to enthrone a new patriarch to guide a religion embodying the spirit of Serbia, but the once a generation ceremony will take place on foreign soil in Kosovo.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but many Serbs still see majority Muslim Kosovo and the monasteries there as the cradle of their Orthodox religion. Old churches and monasteries dot the landscape of the smallest country in the Balkans.

“As you can imagine the political situation is very heated now in the period of the patriarch’s enthronement,” said one Serbian Orthodox Church official who did not want to be named. “The church needs a long-term arrangement which would guarantee its normal life, preservation of its identity and religious freedom, autonomous right to manage its properties in Kosovo as well as special provisions for protected zones.”

Among those expected on Sunday is Serbian President Boris Tadic, whose government does not recognise the independence of its former province. And with thousands of Serbs expected to travel through an Albanian-majority area to the frescoed Patriarchate of Pec where Patriarch Irinej will be enthroned, officials are on guard against trouble.

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The June 18 rally in the capital Pristina by 5,000 women in headscarves, supported by some bearded men, was held after a few headscarf-clad girls were prevented from entering their schools.  It was an extraordinary sight in Kosovo, whose 2 million population is 90 percent Muslim but mostly secular in lifestyle.

(Photo: Kosovo Muslim women protest in Pristina against a headscarf ban in public schools, June 18, 2010/Hazir Reka)

The Kosovo education ministry banned religious garb in primary and high schools late last year, prompting heated debate about religious liberties in the country, a former province of Serbia that declared independence two years ago.

“This decision is in line with the country’s constitution,” said Education Minister Enver Hoxhaj, referring to a clause stipulating that Kosovo “is a secular state and is neutral in matters of religious beliefs”.

While few countries ban headscarves in schools, analysts say Kosovo did so to ensure respect for the secular constitution in a small, fragile young country and underline that it belongs to the West and aspires to join the EU and NATO eventually.

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