among Orthodox churches about whether the tiny republic should break away from Yugoslavia’s dominant republic, Serbia.
It came as 455,000 eligible voters were choosing between parties with different views about a Western backed plan that would end the Yugoslav federation and create a new country known as The Union of Serbia and Montenegro.
Under the European Union brokered deal, Montenegro’s independence would be postponed, but not ruled out after a three year period.
President Milo Djukanovic and his allies support independence, however opinion polls suggested they were only slightly ahead of pro-Yugoslav parties, who seem to enjoy support from the powerful Serbian Orthodox Church.
MONTENEGRIN ORTHODOX CHURCH
However the small Montenegrin Orthodox Church, said its main rivals would be disappointed. "I’m sure there will be both an independent Montenegro and an independent church," the Belgrade based B92 radio network quoted Metropolitan Mihailo of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, as saying.
The senior cleric added that the church had been independent for centuries until after World War One, when Montenegro joined the kingdom that later became Yugoslavia. He stressed his denomination hopes an independent Montenegro will lead "to the return of hundreds of churches and monasteries."
"The Montenegrin Orthodox Church has been occupied by the Serbian Orthodox Church since 1920," Mihailo told B92 speaking from his office in Cetinje, Montenegro’s historic old capital.
"SECT, NOT CHURCH"
The Serbian Orthodox Church was not immediately available for comment, but B92 quoted a Serbian opposition leader as saying that the Montenegrin Orthodox Church "is a sect, not a church."
Journalist Stevo Vucinic, who supported an independent church in Montenegro since the fall of communism in the late 1980s, has accused Serb leaders of treating the coastal republic of 680,000 people as a mere province of Serbia.
"We are not Serbs," he told B92 radio. "Montenegrins don’t want to enter the Serbian church." Whatever the outcome of Sunday’s elections, observers fear that these religious tensions will continue in Montenegro, at a time when it needs clear direction to introduce economic reforms.
The average monthly salary is $120 and unemployment stands at about 20 percent, according to official figures.
Montenegro is Serbia’s only partner in what remains of the bloodied Yugoslav federation after a decade of ethnic conflicts under former President Slobodan Milosevic, who has been extradited to the United Nations Tribunal in The Hague on charges of war crimes.
