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ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER
When Faith Becomes Ancestry: Religious Discourse and the Ethnicization of Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina
by
Adis Maksic 1 
, Affan Saracevic 2
1 International Burch University, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
2 International Burch University, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
ABSTRACT
This article examines how religious institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina transform faith into ethnonational belonging by linking religion with ancestry. Focusing on the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Islamic Community between 2015 and 2025, it argues that institutional religious discourse reframes religious identity as inherited rather than chosen. Drawing on constructivist and post-structuralist approaches, the study conceptualizes descent not as biological fact but as a narrative effect produced through language, symbolism, and repetition. Through comparative discourse analysis of sermons, epistles, and public statements, the article identifies three mechanisms: the construction of the community as a transgenerational moral organism, the sacralization of territory as inherited space, and the mobilization of narratives of suffering and martyrdom that bind present generations to ancestral obligation. These strategies naturalize ethnonational boundaries by embedding them in morally authoritative and emotionally resonant frameworks, making alternative forms of belonging more difficult to sustain. By foregrounding the role of religious institutions in the ethnicization of identity, the article contributes to debates on nationalism, religion, and the durability of ethnopolitical divisions in post-conflict societies.
Keywords: Bosnia and Herzegovina, religion and nationalism, discourse analysis, descent, Serbian Orthodox Church, Islamic Community
HOW TO CITE THIS ARTICLE
Maksic A., Saracevic A. (2026). When Faith Becomes Ancestry: Religious Discourse and the Ethnicization of Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina, MAP Education and Humanities, 7, 1-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.53880/2744-2373.2026.7.1