Registration of the ‘New Stjenik’ Corporation

The official stamp of the association "New Stjenik"

We would like to inform the friends of our monastery of New Stjenik that, after not a little effort and problems, New Stjenik has been established with the authorities as a legal body.

The corporation of New Stjenik was officially registered as a volunteer, apolitical, non-governmental, non-profit organization whose aim is the preservation and implementation of traditional Eastern Orthodox monasticism in a monastic community of the cenobitic type.

For our monastery, this is a very meaningful development, which will amend and in some ways make easier our unresolved status in relation to the State. As you know, our monastery does not belong to the official, state, ecumenist SOC (Serbian Orthodox Church). Our monastery is True Orthodox and belongs to the Serbian True Orthodox Church (which is temporarily under the omophorion of the hierarchy of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece), which was not registered as a community of believers for one simple reason – the legal monopoly held by the SOC on the words ‘Orthodox’ and ‘Church.’

In all other traditionally Orthodox countries throughout the world, the Holy True Orthodox Church has fully registered itself under its full name which certainly in no way could be identical and therefore confusable with the state church because of the attribute of ‘True’; for example, the name the Russian True Orthodox Church is fundamentally different from the name of the State church – The Russian Orthodox Church, etc.

The Serbian True Orthodox Church will never accept a compromise  which involves omitting these three essential words from its name: ORTHODOX, CHURCH, and SERBIAN, which means that our Church will  continue to remain unregistered, and in the eyes of the law, essentially illegal.

However, a separate registration of the corporation of our monastery with the State does in fact provide us with  a legal entity which can own property, have a bank account, and other things which are necessary for a normal functioning within the state-legal order as regards communication with government bodies and other legal entities.

In the coming period, we will regularly inform you of the development, activities, and details of our association ‘New Stjenik.’