Zagreb – In Zagreb on 11 April, the Croatian President Ivo Josipovic (Zagreb) received a five-member Baptist delegation. The church’s President, Pastor Toma Magda (Osijek), informed him on the 130-year history of Croatian Baptists. Magda reported on the fact that the church’s 2.000 members in 50 congregations were respected and appreciated even outside their country. He noted that he himself had served as President of the European Baptist Federation (EBF) from 2007 to 2009. The celebrating of the 400^th anniversary of the founding of the Baptist movement in Amsterdam in 2009 occurred during his term. General-Secretary Zeljko Mraz (Zagreb) reported on the current problems facing his church. In Cakovec, a dormitory with space for 49 students and a Baptist school with 112 pupils are receiving insufficient state funding. Baptists hope to be treated the same as other similar institutions in which the staff is paid with state funding. According to a church press release, President Josipovic promised to personally strive for a resolution of the problem. The Baptists presented the President with a New Testament reprint of the earliest Croatian translation from 1562.

Roughly 88% of the country’s 4,5 million inhabitants are Roman Catholic, 4,4% are Orthodox and another 1,4% Muslim.