A student and a university professor from Belgrade explain why their understanding of the Bible drives them to join the protests for more democracy and a dignified future.
a protest at the end of December against corruption in Serbia. / Photo: [link]Stefan Miljus[/link] (Public Domain).
Serbia remains in turmoil following nationwide protests by students demanding sweeping changes to end government corruption.
The collapse on 1 November 2024 of part of the Novi Sad train station, which killed 15 people, many of them students, turned into anger against the government over indications of possible corruption in the granting of building permits.
After an initial blockade at the Faculty of Arts, protests spread to all Serbian universities, and traffic blockades began in all major cities. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets in the last three months to the point of provoking the resignation of Serbia’s Prime Minister Miloš Vučević on 25 January. The pressure had earlier brought down two other government ministers responsible for issues and the mayor of Novi Sad.
[destacate] Tens of thousands in many cities have joined the largest protests in Serbia’s history[/destacate]Teachers, farmers, taxi drivers, health workers, actors and pensioners, among many others, have joined in what are already the largest protests in Serbia’s history. President Aleksandar Vučić, the main focus of attention, has ruled out resigning and called for dialogued solutions but has also threatened on several occasions to use the full force of the state against protesters.
Kristina Tešić, a French philology student, is one of the students who has joined the protests with full conviction, because “we have had enough of corruption, we see everything, we know and we want change”, she told Evangelical Focus.
“Young people are not asleep”, she continues, and they are not happy with just protesting on social media, do so on the streets during this winter. She, like many others of her generation, is “tired of how the government is running our country and seeing how my colleagues who I love so much are suffering”.
She laments that Serbia “is not a democratic country” because it is easier to get a job if you support the political faction of the government elite. She also complains about the sharp rise in energy prices.
Polarisation has only been exacerbated by the intentional and repeated ramming of demonstrators on several occasions, and voices encouraging ‘trampling and humiliating students during peaceful protests’, says the student.
[photo_footer] Protests in Belgrade and other Serbian cities at the end of 2024 and beginning of 2025. [/photo_footer] Tešić is in her final year of studies and is a member of the Serbian evangelical student movement, EUS (known globally as IFES). She sees her engagement in the protests as a natural expression of her faith.
“I think that as Christians we should be visible in what we stand for and stand for true values. To be salt and light in society and the times we are in. We are called to point to Christ in every situation”, she defends.
Kristina misses that visibility of the church in responding to students’ aspirations. “Students have now begun to think carefully about the purpose of their lives and about the future that arouses fear and anxiety in them”, she says. “We as Christians have a cure for that. We have living water, the word of God. We have Christ”.
Tatjana Samardžija is one of the more than 5,000 lecturers estimated to support the protests in Serbia. She is an Associate Professor in the University of Belgrade. She too told Evangelical Focus what she sees.
“For thirty years I have worked with students but for the three last months, I have been living and working among them in a special way. In my office, when alone, I kneel and pray for them. I pray for God to give them guidance through the daytime”.
[destacate]“Why are we Christians here in the world? We are to speak up and out and to call a spade a spade”[/destacate]On campus, she meets them “at the entrance of my Faculty of philology: they are always smiling and polite. Intelligent and well behaved”. Recently, “students and the teaching staff have decided to meet weekly to discuss issues. These meetings have been initiated by students because they said they wanted to hear our opinion on their protest”.
Samardžija admires the democratic dialogue and the calmness with which they organise these ‘plenum’ assemblies.
The lecturer defines the situation in Serbia by quoting the prophet Isaiah: “For your hands are stained with blood, your fingers with guilt. Your lips have spoken falsely, and your tongue mutters wicked things”.
She says she is tired of the “nepotism” whereby those close to the political leaders get million-dollar deals and says she is fed up with the omnipresence of the president and his political party on television. “We as professors have been called lazy and ‘ungrateful’ by the president himself on TV”.
The lecturer also criticises that “different parties try to capitalize on these protests - as they openly endeavour to steal student's lead in this upheaval of all the nation”.
By nature, Christians should “react to injustice, violence, theft, corruption”, she defends. This is why she is disappointed to hear “many church members say: ’This is not our battle. We wait for Jesus to come back’”.
Since the beginning of the crisis, Tatjana has been engaged in a lot of discussion with fellow believer on social media. “I must say there is much confusion and even conflict on the issue of Christian involvement in different kinds of social activism, especially in the times of deep and open crisis”. She sees a “fear of getting into politics” among evangelicals and Protestants that is less seen among Orthodox Christians in the country.
“Is salt to be held in a box or put into a meal? Why are we Christians here in the world? Not only to shine by our ‘justice’, but also to warm people by our love. We are to speak up and out and to call a spade a spade”, she says, pointing to the examples of Jeremiah and John the Baptist in the Bible, and Martin Luther in Germany, the Huguenots in France or Desmond Doss and Martin Luther King in the USA.
Students, she adds, “are the future intellectual elite of the nation and have the duty to react and to raise their voices. They have, for the sake of their future and their nation, to criticize and ask for accountability the leaders of their country”.
Kristina Tešić quotes Romans 12, where Paul encourages believers to be “joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer” and “practice hospitality, bless those who persecute you, rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn”.
[destacate]“Pray that God will instil fear in the hearts of the people who lead this country. That they will know God, repent and focus on good values”[/destacate]“My prayer for Serbia is that God will touch it with His hand”, says the philology student. “That God will instil fear in the hearts of the people who lead this country. That they will know God, repent and focus on good and moral values. That they will come to know who Christ is”.
She also prays “that the people of Serbia will understand that their only hope and comfort, happiness and fulfilment is in a God who is good, patient with everyone, full of love and mercy, who is there. A God who sees everything and whose word will be the last”.
Lecturer Tatjana Samardžija also shares specific prayer requests for Serbia. “We are to pray that students find God and that God’s Spirit abides among them. We are to pray that they resist those from the Government who already threaten them and try to bribe them. We are to pray that God prevent the possible outburst of violence, as the ruling party gets more and more desperate and impatient”.
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