Three-finger salute (Serbian)

The three-finger salute (Serbian: три прста / tri prsta, "three fingers"), commonly known as the Serb salute, is a salute which originally expressed Serbian Orthodoxy, that today simply is an expression, a gesture, for ethnic Serbs and Serbia, made by extending the thumb, index, and middle fingers of one or both hands.

In Serbian and Orthodox tradition, the number three is exceptionally important. Three fingers are used when signing the cross in Orthodoxy, symbolizing the Trinity. The Serbs, when swearing Oath, historically used the three fingers (collected, as when crossing) along with the greetings "My Holy Trinity" (Svetog mi Trojstva) or "for the Honorable Cross and Golden Freedom" (za krst časni i slobodu zlatnu) during formal and religious events. The salute was often made with both hands, raised above the head. Serbian peasants sealed a pledge by raising three fingers to the face, the face being "the focus of honour" in Balkan culture. A Serbian proverb goes "There is no cross without three fingers" (Nema krsta bez tri prsta).Karađorđe was appointed leader of the Serbian rebels after they all raised their "three fingers in the air" and thereby swore Oath.

The three fingers were viewed of as a symbol of in the 19th century. Njegoš mentioned "the crossing with three fingers has not remained" when speaking of the Islamization of Serbs, a central theme in The Mountain Wreath (1847).Paja Jovanović's painting, The Takovo Uprising (1888), depicts Miloš Obrenović holding a war flag and saluting with three fingers. The Serb-Catholic movement in Dubrovnik, which supported that Serbs had three faiths (Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam), criticized the Pan-Serbists who according to them only "truly believed those Serbs, who cross with three fingers". A short story published in 1901 surrounds a Serbian despot meeting with a Szilágyi, who has the despot's three fingers cut off by Franciscan friars after discussing the right way of crossing. Serbian Metropolitan Nikolaj Velimirović (1881–1956) called for a Serbian salute in which three fingers were to be raised along the greeting: "Thus Help Us God!". In 1937, Velimirović began a sermon protesting the Catholic support for separation of state and religion in Yugoslavia with "Rise three fingers Orthodox Serbs!".

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