THE Serbian Orthodox Church has excommunicated two prominent theologians, Blagoje Pantelić and Vukašin Milićević. Both men are outspoken critics of the Church’s growing support for the Serbian President, Aleksandar Vučić, amid nationwide protests that followed a fatal accident at a train station in 2024.
Mr Milićević was also stripped of his priestly rank. Last March, he was appointed director of the Ljuba Davidović organisation, established by the Democratic Party of Serbia, which promotes democratic values and traditions.
“This regime, both in the State and in the Church, is bothered by every critical voice,” Mr Milićević told the N1 news channel.
“What they wanted to achieve is completely in line with what the regime is doing to our entire society — a complete brutal action of disciplining, intimidating anyone who might think of daring to say something about the catastrophic state in which our society is.”
The decision, among the most severe penalties provided for under church law, has been made by the ecclesiastical court of the archbishopric of Belgrade & Karlovci.
It concludes a process begun last summer (News, 22 August 2025). The two theologians were summoned by the Serbian Orthodox Church in August to give statements. Their support over the preceding year for anti-government and anti-corruption protests led by students was cited.
The protesters demanded political accountability after a railway-station canopy in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed, killing 16 people, in 2024.
In response to the decision, Mr Pantelić, editor of a Serbian theology portal, teologija.net, issued a statement in which he described the court process as “clearly staged from day one.
“In early 2024, Patriarch Porfirije threatened me, through an intermediary, to excommunicate me from the Church, and at the end of the same year he publicly declared that I was outside the Church,” he wrote.
“For the first time in the recent history of the Serbian Church, someone was immediately given the most draconian punishment — ‘final exclusion from the church community’. Not even those who caused schisms were treated this way. Such a verdict denied even the right to repentance. In doing so, the Patriarch showed his anti-Christian face.”
An excommunication in the Orthodox Church means that the excommunicate can neither receive communion nor burial according to Orthodox customs. Mr Pantelić said that he would appeal against the decision.
The Serbian Orthodox Church has not commented publicly on the decisions.
At the end of January, Serbian police dispersed a protest blockade by students and professors at the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad. The blockade followed the dismissal of Professor Jelena Kleut, a supporter of the student-led protests, from her position, as the university Senate did not elect her to the position of full-time professor.
Critics of the government have warned that ousting professors deemed politically unacceptable has become a trend.