WCC News: Serbia’s student movement holds lessons for churches, WCC conversation hears

Students and scholars who took part in Serbia’s nonviolent, student-led movement told World Council of Churches (WCC) staff on 11 November that it was rooted in justice, love and solidarity, values at the heart of the Christian faith. Novi Sad in Serbia, where the student movement began after the canopy of the renovated railway station collapsed on 1 November 2024, killing 16 people. Photo: Albin Hillert/WCC 12 November 2026 The movement began after the canopy of the renovated railway station in Novi Sad collapsed on 1 November 2024, killing 16 people. Students blockaded their faculties, organised through open assemblies called plenums, and brought an estimated 325,000 people onto the streets of Belgrade on 15 March 2025. On 25 October 2026, the Student List won 140 of 250 parliamentary seats, ending 14 years of rule by the Serbian Progressive Party. Marija Tupanjanin, a master’s student at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade, described organising the March protest. Students wrote lawyers’ phone numbers and their blood types on their arms, “in case of emergency,” she said. Residents near the protest offered students their homes for shelter. “There was something way more powerful than our own efforts that led us,” she said. Dr Gazela Pudar Draško, director of the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, said the decentralised plenums were key to the movement’s success. With no single face to target, the movement could not be broken by smear campaigns. “When they make decisions, they actually stick to it,” she said. Prof. Dr Rastko Jović, a theologian and newly elected member of the National Assembly for the Student List, described the marches as “living ascesis.” He pointed to Orthodox Christians and Muslims marching side by side, including on a 400-kilometre march from Novi Pazar. The movement’s values are “all the things that we actually preach in our churches,” he said. He regretted that the church leadership had listened mainly to the government while critical voices were silenced. Asked what churches elsewhere can learn, Jović said: “Not to lose prophetic voice. And even when everything is hopeless, they should have a hope.” Staff from Asia and Africa, joining in person and online, asked how churches in minority contexts can accompany young people who challenge corruption and broken systems. Co-moderator Rev. Dr Kenneth Mtata, WCC programme director for Life, Justice, and Peace said the movement offers hope at a time when people power was being written off. “We are experiencing here a renewal of democracy,” he said. “To see people organize themselves and confront a very entrenched autocracy was really, really inspiring for many people.” WCC member churches in Serbia See more

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 356 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 580 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Prof. Dr Jerry Pillay from the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. Media contact: +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press Our visiting address is: World Council of Churches Chemin du Pommier 42 Kyoto Building Le Grand-Saconnex CH-1218 Switzerland