Religion and History in Montenegro

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Montenegro is a majority Orthodox Christian country on the Adriatic, roughly 72 percent of the population, but its Orthodoxy is itself contested ground: the canonically recognized Serbian Orthodox Church holds most parishes and monasteries while a smaller, government-favored Montenegrin Orthodox Church claims descent from a medieval church that predates union with Serbia, and the two have disputed property and legitimacy since Montenegro regained independence in 2006.

A Sunni Muslim minority of about 19 percent, concentrated among Bosniaks and Albanians in the east and south, and a small Catholic community linked to the country's Albanian and Croatian minorities complete the picture. A 2019 Law on Freedom of Religion, requiring religious communities to prove pre-1918 ownership of property or see it revert to the state, triggered the largest street protests in Montenegro's post-independence history, led overwhelmingly by supporters of the Serbian church, whose parishes and monasteries were the properties most exposed to the new ownership test.