Updated Country Profile - Montenegro

Click here to access the updated Reaching the Nations country profile for Montenegro.

Official LDS Membership Statistics Released for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro

The Church has released official, year-end 2014 membership statistics for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro for the first time. According to the statistics page on mormonnewsroom.org, the Church reported 61 members in Bosnia and Herzegovina and six members in Montenegro. These statistics indicate that church-reported membership in Bosnia and Herzegovina constitutes 0.0016% of the national population, or one LDS member per 63,394 people. Church-reported membership in Montenegro constitutes less than 0.001% of the population, or one LDS member per 107,846 people. The Church assigned the first young, proselytizing missionaries to Bosnia and Herzegovina in March 2012 and to Montenegro in April 2012. Both countries pertain to the Adriatic North Mission.

Mission Realignment in Southeastern Europe

Full-time missionaries serving in the Albania Tirana and Adriatic Missions report that both missions have been realigned.  The Albania Tirana Mission was renamed the Adriatic South Mission whereas the Adriatic Mission was renamed the Adriatic North Mission. 

In addition to Albania, the Adriatic South Mission now includes Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro.  Missionaries report that mission leaders are drafting plans to assign the first proselytizing missionaries to Macedonia and Montenegro in the coming months and increasing the number of missionaries assigned to Kosovo.  Some Serbian-speaking missionaries from the Adriatic North Mission - formerly the Adriatic Mission - will also be assigned to work in non-Albanian-speaking areas.

The Adriatic North Mission now includes Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia.  LDS missionaries have been assigned and branches have operated in Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia for two decades.  Senior missionaries have recently begun working in Bosnia and Herzegovina where two congregations meet in Sarajevo and Banja Luka.

With the assignment of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro to missions and the prospective opening of each country to LDS proselytism within the coming months, all countries in Europe will have an LDS presence for the first time with the exception of a few city-states such as San Marino and Liechtenstein.  Notwithstanding this significant church growth development, hundreds of cities throughout Europe remain unreached by the LDS Church.

First LDS Missionareis Assigned to Montenegro

The first senior missionary couple was recently assigned to the country of Montenegro.  Located in Southeastern Europe in the former Yugoslavia, Montenegro has a population of 667,000 that predominately speaks standard Serbian and Montenegrin (a dialect of Serbian).  In 2010, the Church organized an administrative branch and a group appeared to function in the capital Podgorica.  Senior missionaries have thus far conducted limited proselytism and missionary activity and utilize church materials in Serbian.  It appears likely that Montenegro and other former Yugoslav Republics will be assigned to the Adriatic Mission in the near future.

Elder Nelson Dedicates Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Slovenia for Missionary Work

An LDS Church News article announced the dedication of six Balkan nations by Elder Nelson in early September, four of which have no official Church presence. Yugoslavia was formerly dedicated as a whole in 1985 and recently Church leadership determined that the individual nations which comprise of the former Yugoslavia were to be rededicated individually. Small groups of members attended the dedications of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro. In May 2010, the Church created administrative branches in each of these countries to assist in the preparation of opening these nations to missionary work and formal Church activity. None of the the Balkan nations without a Church presence have any legal obstacles barring the Church's establishment, enjoy religious freedom, and many missionary-oriented Christian groups openly perform missionary activity like Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses. Some nations in the region do have obstacles for the Church to overcome in order to receive official recognition however, like Bosnia which requires at least 300 adult citizen members to apply as a religious community. One of the major obstacles for the Church in these four nations is that there are few native members. There have been several interested individuals attending church meetings in Kosovo and Bosnia in recent years.

Administrative Branches Created in the Balkans

Under the supervision of the Europe Area, the Church has created four branches in nations without an official Church presence in the Balkan nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Each nation has its own administrative branch. There is no official missionary work conducted in these nations and the small numbers of members meet privately. The decision to create these administrative branches - the first of their kind in the Church - may indicate an increased effort to establish the Church in these nations or better coordinate church administration where there are few LDS members. Similar efforts were conducted by the Church in the 1980s in Eastern Europe prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union with small districts of members in Poland and Czechoslovakia.

The Church appears to have increased the flexibility of congregations over the past few years. Typically groups of members in remote locations belong to mission branches. However last year, the Church created nearly two dozen "district branches" in Africa, South America, Europe, and Asia for members meeting in groups within the boundaries of a member district. These locations tend to have many members spread over a large geographic area which are not concentrated in large enough numbers to justify the creation of additional independent branches. Many of these district branches have high potential for growth as groups of members within the district branch increase in numbers and self-sufficiency to merit additional independent congregations.

These four newly created administrative branches in the Balkans appear a stepping stone toward a greater Church presence in the region and an exciting development in the growth of the Church.