Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia's President, will spend the Orthodox Christmas Eve on January 6, in neighbouring Montenegro amid tension in the coastal republic caused by a new religious law which the local Serbs and the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) said was against their interest, the Beta news agency reported on Thursday.

 The agency carried the Belgrade Blic daily report which quoted an unofficial source as saying Vucic would go to northern Montenegro, mostly populated by those considered themselves Serbs, to “once again show the unity of the Serb people in preserving their holy properties and the Serb state.” 

The source added that “if Vucic comes, no political speech is expected, but the massive presence of the Serbs from Montenegro is foreseen.”

Blic said SPC Patriarch blessed the visit during his recent meeting with Vucic.

Montenegro's Parliament has passed the new law on religious communities which SPC has described as an attempt to “steal” its properties in the country.

Montenegrin Orthodox Church is not autocephalous, and some media in Serbia quoted Bartholomew I, the current Archbishop of Constantinople and Ecumenical Patriarch, as saying he would never recognise the independence of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church.

Bartholomew is the primus inter pares in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and considered a spiritual leader of some 300 million people worldwide.