Serbia Submits Bill to Establish Church University

The Serbian government has taken legislative steps to establish the Orthodox University “St. Sava”, which will be established by the Serbian Orthodox Church and may have the state itself as a co-founder. The project provides for budget funding and students educated at the expense of the state, but as of the end of August, there are still no officially announced faculties, specialties, academic program or teaching staff. The initiative for it was announced in April this year with the signing of a memorandum between the government and the Serbian Church against the backdrop of ongoing student protests in the country.

On August 20, 2026, the Serbian government submitted to the National Assembly (Serbian parliament) a draft amendment to the Law on Churches and Religious Communities. The draft law is still in parliamentary procedure. On 24 August, it was considered and approved in principle by the parliamentary Committee on Human Rights, Minorities and Gender Equality.

The proposed new Article 35a of the law explicitly provides for the Serbian Orthodox Church to establish a “special university” as a higher education institution of “special public importance”, citing the Church’s historical role in the development of education, science and culture and in preserving the “spiritual and national identity of the Serbian people and the Republic of Serbia”. Along with the SPC, a co-founder may be a natural or legal person, including the Republic of Serbia.

The draft goes significantly further than granting the Church the right to establish a university. It provides that SPC higher education institutions may receive funds from the republican budget for accredited programmes, with the government also determining the number of students whose tuition will be paid for by the state. The law also allows for the establishment of research organisations and training centres, including for dual training and cooperation with businesses, which may also be financed from the budget.

There is also a relaxation of the procedures: a higher education institution founded by the Serbian Orthodox Church will not be required to provide proof of founding capital or a bank guarantee during the initial and subsequent accreditations. This does not mean exemption from the accreditation itself; the curricula must be accredited according to the general procedure, but it removes one of the financial requirements for the founder.

The idea for the university was formalized earlier this year, when in the Serbian Patriarchate, Patriarch Porfirije and Prime Minister Đuro Matsut signed a memorandum of cooperation on the establishment of the Serbian Orthodox University “St. Sava”. The ceremony was attended by President Aleksandar Vučić and Minister of Education Dejan Vuk Stanković. At that time, President Vučić outlined an extremely ambitious vision: theological education of future priests to be placed “side by side” with education in medicine, law, natural and technical sciences and arts.

However, no list of specialties or final composition of the faculties has yet been published. The teaching staff has not been announced either. The Serbian state and church authorities have not yet given a concrete answer as to which higher education institutions will form the initial core of the university. The Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Belgrade is most often mentioned in the public sphere. The question is whether it will be removed from the oldest state university and transferred to St. Sava. The newly established Faculty of Serbian Studies in Niš is mentioned as a second possible participant, and the Despot Stefan Lazarević Faculty, the successor to the church academy of art and conservation, is a third. However, the latter is currently part of the private university Singidunum. All of these are only discussed options, but there is no officially announced structure for St. Sava. Minister Stanković defended the broader inclusion of the Serbian Church in the education system. On August 26, he declared that he would fight for “restoring the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the educational system of this country,” linking the project to the desire to strengthen the study of Serbian tradition, culture, language, and history. Earlier, he spoke of the Church as a possible “spiritual reference point” for the new academic institution. This suggests that at least in the first stage, St. Sava will likely have a strong theological and humanitarian-identity core, regardless of the long-term stated intentions for medicine, law, and technical sciences.

The most serious criticism is directed at the special status of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The bill first gives all churches and religious communities the right to establish higher education institutions, but then a separate article specifically regulates the university of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the possibility for the state to be its co-founder and, in practice, to finance it from the budget.

The authors of the bill have included an explicit provision that the “special public importance” of the Orthodox university does not affect the equality of other religious communities. However, critics question whether the same financial and institutional opportunities would be provided, for example, to the Catholic Church, the Islamic Community or other registered religious denominations.

The manner in which the law was passed has also drawn criticism. The government has requested that it be adopted through an urgent procedure, with the official reason being that a delay could cause “harmful consequences for the work of churches and religious communities and their institutions”. Some in the opposition and representatives of the academic community are asking what exactly these harmful consequences would be and why such a significant change in the field of higher education is being pushed through the Law on Churches and Religious Communities, and not after a broader educational and public discussion.

The reason for the tension is the current political context in Serbia, where universities and student movements have become an important center of public criticism of the authorities. Therefore, the Church-State University “St. Sava” is seen as an attempt to build an alternative academic center, institutionally and politically closer to the state and church leadership.

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