After many years of religious oppression, religion became the most important feature of national consciousness in the former communist countries, which was most clearly seen in the example of the former Yugoslavia. In Croatia, the defense of the country against Serbian aggression was simultaneously perceived as a defense of Catholicism, as 28 churches were completely destroyed during the Serbian conquest of Croatian territories. A resurgence of interest in religion was observed among Bosnian-Herzegovinian Muslims, who, after the collapse of Yugoslavia, not only founded their nation as Bosniaks, but also rediscovered Islam as their cultural dominant. In my contribution, I focus on analyzing the significance of religion in the states that emerged after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, also taking into account the role of Albania. A common feature of these states is that religion plays an important role in the consciousness of their citizens, with more than 80 percent of citizens describing themselves as religious according to census data. It seems that religion also poses an obstacle to the establishment of a civil society. The promotion of secularism and civil society apparently reminds citizens of the threat to religious freedom that existed during the socialist era.