There is no International Church Fund, World Church, or a Church Union – the Church answers only to God, and he, as is well known, very rarely sends his special envoys for inspection.

Voja Zanetic

For a start, and for the needs of this subject and this column, it’s worth comparing two groups of people: believers and citizens. You’ll see, it makes some crazy sense.

So, let’s start with a rough definition of the issue. Believers are a group united by the institution of a religious community (hereinafter referred to as the Church, whichever one), and the associated religious records, rules and customs. The second group is united by administrative institutions, laws and regulations, which are valid in a certain territory to which those citizens belong. When we look at the matter from this territorial aspect, a citizen can also be called a state national. Finally, a believer must also be a citizen, while citizens do not have to be believers. That is, so far no one has claimed that citizens must believe in something. But now, that’s exactly what someone is claiming.

Believers believe that there is a God. Citizens believe that there is a State. As things stand, the existence of neither has been fully proven. And it’s getting harder and harder to prove.

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‘The state exists!’ exclaimed the government-employed clerk working at an institution counter, to which the citizen replied ‘It does exist!’, handing over his papers in the Rite of Gathering Documentation; of course, with proof that he paid the contribution right under the icon of the Bank, which is located on another floor of the Administration building, the temple of the State. The citizen is sending his prayer to the State to fulfil a need through these papers, and the state can choose not to answer. They don’t say ‘State Forbid’ for nothing.

The State, an essentially religious entity, is not based solely on beliefs in justice and the effectiveness of the Administration. Parade ceremonies, as well as military and police exercises are organized for the needs of the citizens’ faith in the power of the State. Prayer walks, so to speak. The holy dates of the founding of the State are celebrated like all other religious days that mark the birth of the object of belief, and the state flock is given many other red letters in the state calendar, which celebrate various questionable beliefs. So we have the 1st May and 8th March.

We could gather even more evidence to support the thesis that belief in the State is as much a religion as belief in God. And that without mass faith in the earthly justice of the State mass earthly atheism, better known as anarchy, would prevail. In it, people would act as if the State did not exist, the stronger and richer would impose their rules, property would have no one to protect it, crime would flourish empowered by the idea that there was no State to punish it, dignitaries of the Administration would make non-state and anti-state moves with a clear awareness that the non-existence of the State allows them to do so. And in the election fight for high positions in the Administration, the state church, false prophets would promise the non-believers that the State would return and that after that, Paradise would rule. Not this hell we live in.

However you reacted to this is okay.

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If we went only a step further, the comparison of God’s and the State administration would not end in favour of the latter. Church resources are not privatized, at least not in a formal-ownership form. No monastery was ceded to a foreign religious investor, and with subsidies. Furthermore, the church does not have public debt, and it rarely happens that young people go to another church forever for temporary or permanent belief, because they see no future in the domestic church. There is no International Church Fund, World Church, or a Church Union – the Church answers only to God, and he, as is well known, very rarely sends his special envoys for inspection. In that, and in every other sense, the Church has it much easier; in thinking about whether God’s and state administration cooperate or not, or what their relationship even is – there is one very important precondition.

Believers have no reason to worry. Their community will survive.

And for the citizens, it’s up to the State – if there is one.

Amen.