Interwar Attitudes of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović toward the Communists

The paper “Interwar Attitudes of Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović toward the Communists” analyzes Nikolaj Velimirović’s attitudes toward communism in the interwar period. It argues that his anti-communism should not be reduced to a simple political alignment with the right, nor interpreted only through later controversies surrounding his legacy. Instead, the paper situates his views within a broader theological, intellectual, and political critique of modernity. Velimirović opposed communism primarily because he understood it as aggressive atheism, vulgar materialism, and a totalitarian expression of secular modernity. At the same time, his criticism of communism was inseparable from his criticism of capitalism, liberal individualism, Western secularization, and the ideological radicalization of European society after the First World War. The paper shows that Velimirović’s thought combined Orthodox Christian social concepts, anti-modernist criticism, Russophile religious imagination, and concern over revolutionary violence and ideological polarization. By placing his views in the context of interwar Yugoslavia, the study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of religious intellectuals, anti-communist discourse, and symbolic power in Southeast European political culture.