The Socialist Impact on Christian-Muslim Shared St. Naum Monastery

Shared religious places may be provocative phenomena—for the members of the sharing communities as well as for uninvolved observers. An increasing number of research literature focusing on the contesting character of such places and the consequences for the identities of sharing communities serves as evidence for that thesis. The heads of the theoretical discussion regarding the influence of sharing religious and political identities are the anthropologists, Robert Hayden and Glenn Bowman. Due to the long-lasting Christian- Muslim contacts characterized by peaceful as well as conflicting interaction, both bring examples from Southeastern Europe, especially from the post-Yugoslavian context. It is obvious that the conclusion is based on the historic events they emphasize as significant identity markers. In fact, every historic period with its political system and ideas influences the negotiation of the past and the creation of current religious and political identities. Based on qualitative-empirical fieldwork data and historic findings, this article investigates the socialist impact on the Christian and Muslim contact at the Sveti Naum Monastery in Macedonia, as an example for shared religious places