Category: Money and deals
Period: from 2016
Outcome: No one investigated (as of 5 Oct 2026)
For years, the Government of Serbia has been granting millions to the Serbian Orthodox Church from the budget reserve, which is meant for unforeseen expenses. According to BIRN, it does so through decisions adopted at closed sessions, often without any stated purpose. According to Radio Free Europe, in 2026 alone the Church received money from the reserve at least six times, three of them for eparchies outside Serbia. The Fiscal Council describes spending from the reserve as “too broad and insufficiently transparent”. In October 2026, the Eparchy of Vranje received 72 million dinars under a decision signed by Đuro Macut; we found no action by the authorities.
The current budget reserve is meant for costs that could not have been foreseen when the National Assembly adopted the budget, and the Government controls it without the Assembly. Money for the Church most often goes out as a grant through the General Secretariat of the Government, with the justification „to provide financial assistance“.
According to BIRN journalist Katarina Baletić, the Government adopts these decisions at sessions closed to the public and does not publish all of them, so the money cannot be fully traced. Economist Goran Radosavljević told RFE/RL that it is an abuse when the authorities „hide“ money in the reserve when they know in advance what they will spend it on.
In 2020, Aleksandar Vučić said that "no one has helped the Serbian Orthodox Church as much as the SNS government has in the last 50 years" and that the state had set aside €43 million for the church since 2017. According to Danas, by mid-2023 the state had put around €72 million into the church, €62.7 million of it through published decisions from the budget reserve alone.
On Vidovdan 2026, Macut and Patriarch Porfirije signed a contract to fund the completion of the church from the budget. According to Vreme, the Church was granted 763.1 million dinars for a new mosaic, even though the interior was completed in 2020. The first payment went to the Church's account at Alta Banka.
In February 2026, the Eparchy of Buda in Hungary received 35.4 million dinars, and in March the Eparchy of Bihać and Petrovac in Bosnia and Herzegovina received 118 million, around a million euros. A month before that payment, Bishop Sergije presented Vučić with the Order of the New Martyrs. According to RFE, around €200 thousand went to the patriarchal residence in Dalj, Croatia, and money also went to churches in Klokočevac and Lučani, places where local elections were held in the spring.
In October 2026, the Government granted the Eparchy of Vranje 72 million dinars; the decision, signed by Macut, does not state its purpose.
The Fiscal Council warns that, unlike most European laws, Serbian law sets no clear conditions for using the reserve, and that the executive uses it to change fiscal policy non-transparently, bypassing parliament. From 2018 to 2022, almost 40 percent of spending from the reserve was classified as secret.
According to an RFE/RL analysis, since the start of 2026 alone the Government has dipped into the reserve more than 130 times, for more than €122 million, including for EXPO. Neither the Government, nor the Ministry of Finance, nor the Serbian Orthodox Church answered RFE/RL's questions.