Jehovah’s Witnesses

For Immediate Release
March 1, 2010
(Serbian, Russian)

Serbia registers Jehovah’s Witnesses

BELGRADE, Serbia—The Serbian Ministry of Religious Affairs accepted the application of “Jehovah’s Witnesses—Christian Religious Community” and enrolled them in the Register of Churches and Religious Communities. The registration went into effect on February 8, 2010.

This development means that Jehovah’s Witnesses are now legally recognized as a church or religious community in all the countries that surround Serbia and all the European Union member countries. Serbia pursues EU membership as well. By making the decision to enroll Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Register of Churches and Religious Communities, the Serbian Ministry of Religious Affairs acknowledges the existence and activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Serbia over many decades.

The Witnesses are by no means new to the region. Already in the early 1920’s in the territory of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, there were International Bible Students, as Jehovah’s Witnesses were then known, who were practicing their faith in many Serbian cities. And on September 9, 1930, the Ministry of Internal Affairs acknowledged Jehovah’s Witnesses. In 1953, they were registered in the FNR Yugoslavia as a Christian religious community.

Today, Jehovah’s Witnesses are an international Christian community of over 7,300,000 members currently active in 236 countries and lands. Every month 39,000,000 issues of their magazine The Watchtower are printed for worldwide distribution in 180 languages.

Contacts:
In Serbia:  Damir Porobić, + 381 63 266 789

In Belgium: European Association of Jehovah’s Christian Witnesses, telephone: +32 2 782 0015

In Germany: Wolfram Slupina, tel. + 49 6483 413110

In USA: J.R. Brown, telephone +1 718 560 5600