Stella Alexander - Böcker

This full-length study of the relations between Church and state in communist regime is set in the only communist country where free research into the subject has ever been possible; it gains additional interest and topicality from the identification of religion and nationalism in a multi-national state. The author writes objectively about the still controversial events of the war and the period immediately after, when the Catholic and Orthodox Churches were confronted by a vicious communist power, determined to impose unity on the country and break the power of the churches. She describes the harsh early years, the gradual easing of the conflict and the growth of toleration on both sides, leading to a characteristically Yugoslav form of uneasy coexistence. The legal status of the churches, the religious press and religious education are all covered and there is a special study of the well-known case of Archbishop Stepinac of Zagreb, his trial and the effect of his imprisonment.