A resurgence in life of prayer

The stars are shining above Decani Monastery as monks in black robes hurry across the yard and through the wooden side door of the Church of the Ascension. They gather in the cavernous darkness and begin to pray, their voices at times rising into song. Around them, barely visible in the flickering light, saints and warriors of the Orthodox Church gaze out from frescoed walls painted nearly 700 years ago.

These Serb monks trace their lineage to the 14th century, when King Stefan Uros III founded a monastery in a cleft of the Accursed Mountains in western Kosovo. Rising well before dawn, the monks pursue a life of work and prayer whose essential rhythms have changed little since that time.

Just a decade ago, this way of life had nearly died away. Almost a half century of communist rule in the former Yugoslavia had choked off the supply of new monks. A few older monks remained, keeping tradition alive, but just barely.

Today, young men from all over the former Yugoslavia are beating a path to Decani to embrace the rigors and, they say, blessings of monastic life. The monastery's cells are brimming. Days are busy with farming, writing, icon-painting, translating, woodcarving, and more. For the first time in decades, Decani is thriving.

And not just Decani. All across the Orthodox lands of the former Yugoslavia - Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and parts of Bosnia - monasteries are enjoying a revival. Tito's Yugoslavia suppressed religion and turned old churches and monasteries into "cultural monuments." Now, religion is permissible again, and many young people are turning to it even as their society falls increasingly under the influence of Western secular culture.

The monastic revival springs not just from pent-up religious feeling, but also from the resurgence of nationalism. In the 1990s, Orthodox priests in Bosnia and Croatia blessed Serb fighters who carried out "ethnic cleansing" in the name of the Serb people. In Kosovo, Serbian Orthodox clergy supported Slobodan Milosevic when he began his crackdown on ethnic Albanians. Today, when the tables have turned, Serb monks fight to defend their monasteries and the province's Serb remnant from the hostile Albanian majority.

In Macedonia, just south of Serbia, young people are moving into dozens of abandoned monasteries. They are animated in part by a determination to shore up the small and weak Macedonian nation in a region dominated by more populous nations.

"The revival of the monasteries is a revival of our people," says Father Stefan Sanjakovski, a professor at the Theological Faculty in Skopje.

Not everyone is pleased by the resurgence of religion. It worries liberals, who see the growing influence of the Orthodox Church as an impediment to the development of a Western-style separation of church and state. Politicians curry the favor with the church in all sorts of ways. In Macedonia, the government is building a massive 250-foot-high cross on the mountain above the capital. In Serbia, the government instituted compulsory religious education this year.

The Serb church "is a nationalist church," Bratislav Grubacic, editor of the VIP news agency in Belgrade, says bluntly. "It's not organized in a very modern way."

Most monks say they chose their vocation for reasons more spiritual. Father Ilarion Lupulovic forsook a successful career on the Belgrade stage six years ago to come to Decani. "Of course it is difficult," says Father Ilarion, who is 28. "That is one of the reasons why I came. But there is also an opportunity for great peace and joy, and you can even say love, when you are a part of a community like this."

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