The Serbian Orthodox Church and National Identity: Religious Habitus and the Politicization of Symbols

This study explores the role of the Serbian Orthodox symbolic system in Serbian nationalism, drawing on ethno-symbolism and the concept of “religious habitus.” It aims to account for deep religious undercurrents often overlooked by modernist theories. The analysis investigates how symbolic resources—specifically the Saint Sava tradition and the Kosovo Myth—and everyday practices like Slava and icon veneration have fostered a religious habitus, embedding collective identity into embodied experience. The research demonstrates that emotions accumulated within this habitus interacted with modern nationalist discourse, triggering a powerful “cultural resonance” that drove mass mobilization in the late 1980s. Thus, Orthodoxy serves not just as a political tool but as a foundational cultural framework. The study concludes that the vitality of Serbian nationalism derives from the organic convergence of premodern religious heritage and modern ideology, challenging the view of nationalism as a purely modern invention.