Officials of the Vatican and Montenegro on Friday signed a landmark
agreement regulating relations between the Catholic church and the
Balkan state, the first such accord reached with a predominantly
Orthodox country.
The agreement guarantees the legal status of the
church and its institutions and covers the operation of seminaries and
spiritual assistance in the armed forces, prisons and hospitals.
It was signed by Prime Minister Igor Luksic and the Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone at a Vatican ceremony.
Bertone
says the Catholic church "was not seeking privileges, certainly not at
the expense of other confessions" but sought to define its legal
position "for the common good of the country."
Catholics in Montenegro are a tiny minority in the mainly Orthodox Christian population of 680,000 people.
Luksic
has been seeking to steer Montenegro, which emerged as an independent
nation in 2006 after the dissolution of its short-lived union with
Serbia, toward European Union membership.
The government said
agreement testifies to the country's commitment to the "fundamental
ethical, spiritual and cultural values shared by the Holy See and the
entire European community."
While the Holy See has diplomatic
relations with a wide range of Orthodox countries, both sides said this
was the first such agreement signed by the Vatican and an Orthodox
country to regulate church-state relations.