Thousands pray in protest against Montenegro religion law Thousands of followers of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro gather for a mass prayer and protest march against a new law that has spiked tensions in the tiny Balkan state. The new law requires religious communities to prove ownership of properties from before 1918 -- when Montenegro was absorbed into Serb-dominated Yugoslavia -- in order to keep them. The government defends the law as a measure to reclaim what is rightfully Montenegrin property. But the Serbian Orthodox Church accuses the state of trying to steal its hundreds of churches and monasteries dotted across valuable land.