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ZAGREB, CROATIA, November 2, 2003: Croatian elementary school teacher Marijana Ivanovic has taken up yoga to help her relax. “Yoga really helps recharge one’s batteries and eases my lower-back pain,” said Ivanovic, who has taught for more than 30 years, during the first session of a state-supported yoga program for teachers. The education ministry introduced the program this year as part of efforts to help teachers work better, according to this Reuters report. The ministry awarded US$7,624 in annual support to a local group known as “Yoga in Daily Life,” which draws on the teachings of Hindu spiritual leader Paramhans Swami Maheshwarananda, known as Swamiji. The sessions are held in the four largest Croatian cities — Zageb, Split, Rijeka and Pula. Vedrana Josipovic, who is in charge of the program, insists they have nothing to do with the institutionalization of yoga in schools. But the program is at the center of a highly charged public debate because it has fallen foul of the powerful Roman Catholic church in this majority Catholic country. The Croatian Bishops’ Conference said the program would “make an unacceptable favor to an organization and its founder who wants to introduce Hinduistic religious practice in Croatian schools.” It said everything was being done under the guise of exercise. The bishops’ statement appeared to have an immediate impact in a country where almost 90 percent of the people profess to be Catholic. Local media reported that interest in the yoga program had fallen sharply after the protest. Yoga ran into similar trouble in Slovakia in 2001 when a proposal to teach yoga in schools was eventually dropped in the face of fierce opposition from Slovakia’s Catholic church and allies in the rightwing government.

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