Unlike in other Central and East European post-communist societies, democracy in the Balkans is being built after long and violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. This yet-unfinished transformation follows a period of armed conflicts and ethnic cleansing during which nationalistic passions were stoked by rewritten history and religion used to homogenize one's own nation and vilify members of other nations. To make things worse, in the Balkans, nationality largely equals religion. Organized religion played an important role in the “national renewal” that was offered instead of democracy as the only alternative after the demise of communism. After being marginalized for almost half a century, religious forces were eager to restore their positions and acquire a major role in the new society. They reclaimed their power first through a partnership with the fledgling opposition and then with new democratically elected governments.

This prolonged crisis spawned hundreds of books and thousands of articles, yet there are still areas scholars have not covered in sufficient depth. Denial and Repression by Jovan Byford fills such a gap. It focuses on the creation of the myth and subsequent canonization of the Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović. The book is a sequel of sorts. Byford's previous work, Conspiracy Theory: Serbia vs. the New World Order, published in Serbian in 2006, explores another part of the larger framework of the society that is anti-Western and xenophobic—and contains elements of anti-Semitism.

In his introduction, Byford provides a summary and conceptual framework, including the utility of contemporary theories on collective memory and its manipulation. He then moves to an accounting of the life of Nikolaj Velimirović, a prominent bishop in the Serbian Orthodox Church in the early 20th century who has been widely accused of anti-Semitism. Byford flags some of Velimirović's little-known early writings, including patriotic treatises advancing the unique character of the Serbs and the “beautiful” death of national heroes in 1389 at Kosovo. Byford offers a thorough analysis of Velimirović's concept of “all humanity” and evangelical nationalism based in universal unity to be achieved through faith in Jesus Christ but rooted in Eastern Orthodoxy (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) and rejection of the West's increasingly secular culture and societies. The book proceeds to document the rest of Velimirović's life and works, as well as the campaign to rehabilitate his image that coincided in the 1980s with the drive of the Serbian Orthodox Church to become the principal articulator of the Serbian national interests. Byford establishes the timeline of the activities leading up to the rehabilitation of Bishop Velimirović and places it with accuracy into the larger context of political change and corresponding social transformation. He explores the dynamic of social forgetting which demands replacement, in this case the creation of a myth portraying Velimirović as victim of Nazi persecution.

Further, Byford examines the rhetoric of social denial in the context of Serbian Orthodox Church culture and links the rise of Velimirović's popularity to a resurfacing of anti-Semitism, growing nationalism, chauvinism, xenophobia, and radical right-wing organizations under the wing of some leading Church figures. Serbs never hated or persecuted Jews, claim defenders of Velimirović. While national self-glorification becomes an instrument of denial, critics of anti-Semitism in the works of Velimirović are dismissed as puppets of the West or mercenaries. Defenders of Velimirović portray Jews as prejudiced and Serbophobic and assert that since the early 1990s, the Serbian people have been satanized by the world media with active participation of influential American Jews such as Madeleine Albright, Richard Holbrook, and Wesley Clark. Under the title “He was merely quoting the Bible,” Byford devotes an entire chapter to a detailed exposition of how accusations of Velimirović's anti-Semitism have been dealt with, while a subsequent chapter examines the long campaign for the canonization of Velimirović that spanned from 1980 until 2003, when he was unanimously voted into the calendar of Serbian Orthodox saints. Byford rightly argues in his conclusion that the main “problem” with contemporary Christian-Jewish relations in Serbia lies not in what Velimirović was “really” like, but in his remembrance and his uncritical adulation.

This book provides an authoritative vivisection of the goals, behavior, and strategies of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and sheds light on the chauvinism behind the myths of martyrdom. It may prompt strong ire from within the Church and nationalists, but also among political “moderates” in Serbia. However, Byford's claims and conclusions are well supported by strong evidence, most of which comes from Church sources and Velimirović's own works. At times Byford goes out of his way to present all arguments of Velimirović's supporters both within and outside of the Church. Thus he produces a well-balanced and unbiased work.

Bishop Velimirović's way to sainthood was built by the Serbian Orthodox Church and facilitated by the national(istic) elite. His views, as expressed in Words to the Serbian People through the Dungeon Window, lie at the core of the Great-Serbian nationalism and traditionalism that stand in the way of democratization in Serbia. Claims about the suffering of Serbs throughout the history at the hands of Turkey and the Vatican provide Serbian justification for crimes committed in the 1990s against Muslims, Croats, and then Albanians. Velimirović's works strengthen and enhance the position not only of the Church, but also of a majority of the Serbian elite, that Serbs were just defending themselves and their way of life, of which faith is the most important part. Again, in the Balkans, nationality equals religion. No serious student of Serbia should miss this impressive book.