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. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES