Religious Conversions from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism in the Diocese Dakovo Srijem in 1941 and 1942

The author of the paper researches the conversions from Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism in the Dakovo-Srijem diocese during the period 1941 and 1942. The research is based on the records from archive holdings such as the Archbishop's Clerical Board of the Archbishop's Archive in Zagreb, the Ministry of Justice and the NDH Ministry of Justice and Worship at the Croatian State Archive and Commissariat for Refugees at the Archive of Serbia. In this paper, the author discusses the types of individual conversions. The largest number of religious conversions were made in the area of Donji Miholjac, Osijek, Vukovar, Vinkovci, Slavonski Brod and Nasice. The author finally concludes, on the basis of reports from some parishioners, that in most cases, conversion to Roman Catholicism was not honest, that the Serbs were mostly forced to convert to Roman Catholic faith for the sake of preserving their existence and their lives. Following the foundation of the Croatian Orthodox Church in the first half of 1942, the Orthodox generally ceased to attend Roman Catholic masses