MONTENEGRO: A principality of Europe
bounded by Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Rascia (NoviBazaar), Albania, and the Adriatic Sea; the estimated area is 3,486 square miles and the population
is
estimated at 225,000, nine-tenths being Montenegrins, and members of the Orthodox Greek
Church, whose metropolitan obtains his commissions from the Holy Synod in Russia, while 13,000
are Mohammedans and 14,000 Roman Catholics,
these being Albanians or Serbs. From 1516 to 1852,
the bishop or metropolitan held the additional title
of prince, there being at the same time a governor
of temporal and military affairs. The bishop
was
long elected by popular vote; but from the time of
Daniel I. (1697-1737) the office has been hereditary,
needing, however, the confirmation of the Servian
patriarch at Ipek, later at Carlovitz, while beginning with the eighteenth century the Czar of Russia became the recognized head. The metropolitan
of the capital city, Cetinje, retains a merely qualified influence. As supreme head of the ninety
parishes of the land, whose precincts chiefly coincide with those of the temporal districts, he controls most of the parochial clergy as priests; but
there are also thirteen small cloisters, whose monks
also exercise pastoral duties. The popular education is backward; even the regulation as to a general four years' course of obligatory schooling is
far from thoroughly carried out. There are three
intermediate schools, and a girls' seminary and
boarding-school at Cetinje, established by Russian
contributions. The Roman Catholic faith has a
considerable following in the southern districts, where
they number about 8,000. The Roman Catholics are affiliated, in the main, to the archbishop of
Antivari; save the more scattered ones northward,
to the bishop of Cattaro. Their pastoral care is
committed almost entirely to Franciscans. The
Catholic Church became a nationally recognized
religious community in Montenegro by the Concordat of 1886 (see
Concordats and Delimiting Bulls, VI., 2, § 8, 4), and Catholics again enjoy the
advantages of the civil code of 1888. The Mohammedans, since conditions
are less favorable to them,
emigrate more and more to Turkey.
W. Götz.
Bibliography:
W.
Denton, Montenegro, its People and
their History, London, 1877; P. Coquelle, Hist. du Montin6pro, Paris, 1895; W.
Miller, The Balkans. New York,
1898; L. Pasearge, Dalmatian and Montenegro, Leipsic,
1904; R. Wyon, The Balkans from within, London, 1904
