Samo sloga Srbina spasava (Only Unity Saves the Serbs)

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This is an historically significant phrase of the Serbian people as a cry against foreign domination and national disunity. It is also the official motto of the Federal Republic of Serbia and Montenegro. Known as the ocila in Serbian, the phrase is often displayed upon the Serbian national coat of arms as an acronym of four Cyrillic letters for 's' that mean "Samo sloga Srbina spasava" — "Only Unity Saves the Serbs." The phrase was recently co-opted by Serbian ethnic nationalists in the 1990s, most notably by ex-Serb president and indicted war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, to incite political pressure or violence against non-Serbs and Serbian opponents of nationalism in the former Yugoslavia.

This phrase is said to originate in the XXIIth Cenury with St. Sava, a Serb prince and monk, and later the patron saint of the Serbian Orthodox church. It was at this time that Serbs, who lacked a nationally established church, were under pressure from the Vatican to convert from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. St. Sava called for the creation of an independent church in Serbia that would remain Orthodox, and uttered the ocila to urge the Serbian people to declare national autonomy and resist domination by the Roman Catholic Church.