ORTHODOX RELIGION TEACHING IN DANUBE RIVER REGION

OSIJEK, Feb 12 (Hina) - Four thousand primary and secondary school children in 35 schools in the Croatian Danube River region are attending religion classes, which are held by 20 Serb Orthodox priests, four laymen and two deacons. According to Ratomir Petrovic, deputy bishop of the Osijek and Baranja diocese, Osijek and Vukovar counties have the best organised Orthodox religion classes. Petrovic also commended cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Sport and county education offices but complained about the insufficient number of Orthodox religion teachers and unclear situation regarding textbooks. Hieromonk Miron, a religion teacher in the region, says the Serb Orthodox Church has still not decided if it wants religion textbooks to be the same for all Orthodox believers, both in Yugoslavia and Croatia, or wants those for Croatia to be printed separately. In the latter case, the printing would be financed by the Croatian Ministry of Education and Sports, he said. The religion teacher holds a recent seminar for Orthodox priests- religion teachers very useful. The seminar, held in the eastern village of Dalj, was organised by the Education Ministry. Another three seminars will be organised this year, he announced. The headmaster of the primary school 'Borovo' in Vukovar County, Slobodan Landup, said regular religion classes for Serb children were introduced on the basis of a poll among the parents. The school is attended by 385 pupils and only ten of them are Croat children, he said. (hina) rml