His Grace Amfilohije, the Metropolitan of Montenegro,
the Coastal lands and Skenderia and the Keeper of the Pec throne
Shame and Blame in the Face of Christian Europe
Your Holiness, Your Grace, dear brothers and sisters,
Our wise episkopos spoke wisely sometime during the month
of June. We are fighting, said he, a new Kosovo battle but this time we
have no venerable Knez [Prince] and no Holy Cross. The venerable Knez has been replaced
by irreligion. Irreligion, as known to people from times immemorial, lacks
in faith. The Holy Cross has been substituted for a "target", the suicidal
sign of the God Shiva, which I had come across in the deserted Patrijarsijska
street leading towards the Patriarchate of Pec last June. It has also
been replaced by an Albanian flag that is now, for the first time since
the Battle of Kosovo, flown from the house nearest to the Patriarchate.
This was obviously meant to happen, justifiable probably
by some historical logic, or some deeper moral code, but also founded
in the ways mysterious even to God. Everything that has been going on
in Kosovo since 1941 lead to this which is happening today and that has
not happened in 600 years. This year's Vidovdan [the anniversary of
the Battle of Kosovo, 28 June] has undoubtedly been the most dreadful
of all such holidays for entire Serbian nation both in Kosovo and Metohia
and outside of it.
On the eve of the Vidovdan liturgy, which we served behind
the altars of our ancient archbishopric and patriarchal shrines in the
Partiarchate of Pec and with the blessing of His Holiness, we laid to
rest the bodies of Mileva Vujosevic, aged 50, shot dead with a bullet,
her brains, in which I stepped on entering her house, strewn and Marica
Maric, a retarded girl, who was raped in her poor abode in Belo Polje.
We found her on a broken couch, dead, disfigured. These two we buried
just before Vidovdan and, as we served the Vidovdan Liturgy in the Patriarchate
of Pec, we could not help feeling that this was really the most horrific
Vidovdan over the past 600 years which affected all the Serbs and had
a special effect on the Serbian national entity in Kosovo. We felt that
vladika [prince-bishop] Rade's [P. P. Njegos] words
"Kosovo is a huge court-house with Sodom raging in its midst" really came
to be prophetic.
Today Kosovo is, if that is of any consolation to us, really
a "huge court-house". It is the court in which our people are being tried,
the court where Shqiptars are being tried, the court where Europe and
the civilized world are also being tried. Today's verdict, being passed
on the world, was written in a gospel before Christ's Golgotha and its
continuation, I have a felling, happens to coincide with what is going
on in Kosovo and Metohia at present. What is happening here today concerns
not only us but is also relevant to the entire modern world, the Christian
civilization and is pertinent to the man at the end of the 20th
and the beginning of the 21st century. When speaking with European
and American dignitaries during their visits to the Patriarchate I have
repeatedly said, which may have been found objectionable by some, that
what has been occurring is foremost a disgrace and a shame of my people,
one segment of my people that is. This I have repeated and I repeat it
again. It is also a disgrace on the part of the Albanians, one honourable
nation who is also a God's people worthy of its place under the sun, deserving
of time and space in which to bear the fruit of its labour. What one fraction
of this people has been doing in the name of all is a disgrace and a shame
on the face of the entire nation.
The things taking place in Kosovo today
as well as those which happened during the bombardment are, as I kept
repeating and am repeating it now, disgraceful and the Christian Europe
should feel ashamed. The Christian Europe and American civilization brought
upon themselves the blame which they ought to be ashamed of. It is a disgrace
that the 20th century is coming to its close by bombs being
dropped on a sinful but, as His Holiness sometimes points out in His prayers
sinful all around yet not without a reason, nevertheless a Europe's ancient,
Christian and honourable nation. This is how Europe is commemorating the
2000 years of Christianity and this is how it is entering the third millennium.
This is also something most tragic and absurd that every sensible person
ought to stop over and think about, regardless of what nation or religion
one belongs to.
A part of this disgrace and shame has been presented, in word and
picture, in this publication called "Crucified Kosovo". The original
list numbered over fifty shrines but in the meantime additional twenty
shrines and monasteries, razed to the ground within the last fortnight,
have been added to it. The latest report announced that the Monastery
of Zociste, in the vicinity of Velika Hoca, has been levelled with the
ground - an ancient medieval monastery, place famous for its healing
properties, of importance not only for Orthodox Serbs but all inhabitants
living around the monastery. Over the past years more Muslims and Shqiptars
than Serbs frequented the Monastery of the Holy Healers, especially
in times of evil and deadly disease, the heinousness which in many ways
is accountable for the state we now find ourselves in. Today the monastery
with its shrine and the buildings surrounding it are completely razed
to the ground. The same destiny befell, and there is evidence of this,
the Monastery of Holy King Milutin, in Musutiste. Now that his name
is mentioned I must reveal before God what I heard has been happening
in Kosovo. During bombardment a chief of the police came to a priest
to inform him of an impending destruction of a mosque. The priest responded:
"I beg you in God's name, don't destroy the mosque because if you do
you will also destroy our shrine. "The policeman turned his head, went
away and the mosque was pulled down. So how can anyone be certain that
those, who "awaited their five minutes", will spare anyone's shrine?
Be assured, and we who have been in Kosovo and Metohia over the past
few months can testify it to be true, that had it not been for the presence
of the international forces in Kosovo at this very moment the Patriarchate
of Pec, as well as Decani and Gracanica, too, would have been reduced
to rubble and turned into ashes. There would be no Serb left in the
area. This is the situation today. The booklet we have here is a small
insert, which tells about our current position.
That which has been left of the shrines, holy places and
people is to be found in reservations today and I am certain that even
the Indian reservations are in a much better state than those in Serbia,
including the enclaves in Kosovo and Metohia. The Patriarchate of Pec
is a reservation of a kind, all in bunkers, under the search lights,
protected by tenks. In spite of everything there were missiles launched
at it the other day, as you have heard, but fortunatelly did not fall
on the shrine or the konak [residential quarters]. Instead, they landed
somewhere in between the two. Decani is also in a reservation as is
Gracanica and all other places where our people live. Gora`devci, to
mention some, is the only village on the Metohia side which remained
in the area. The reservations mentioned are secured only temporarily,
with a sword of Damocles hanging above them as it were. A deep, existential
fear has entered them as did hundreds of people, out of some 30,000
from Pristina, who are now waiting to leave this hell. We have a list
with the names of some 200 kidnapped and murdered people only in the
Pec area but the number is not conclusive. There certainly are tens
of murdered people that are still unaccounted for, not the mention the
kidnapped from this region alone. There must be over 400 abducted persons
which are believed to be killed. Recently, a hole has been discovered
in the vicinity of Istok and in it 40 corpses were found, among which
was the body of Father Stefan from Budisavac monastery. Father Hariton
is still unaccounted for, and has been for quite some time. And, for
as long as Kosovo is in such a reservation Serbia, together with its
leaders and the entire population, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
itself, will also be in one. Theirs will have a cul-de-sac.
The circle around Serbian people is getting increasingly smaller, with all diplomatic
and political connections and humanitarian links being severed, not
to mention personal ties with the international community. Those who,
at this time, should be taking the people out of this situation they
are in for the first time in their history are shunned by the entire
world which does not wish to speak to them; the fact obvious to anyone
who has the eyes and the ears. Whether those who do not want or do not
wish to communicate are in the right or not is another issue. But chosing
the target conscieslly or unconscieslly as their symbol, the symbol
for something much more profound by which these people have opted out
for the road to suicide should this situation in our country continue,
is a historical and also a tragic fact. This means that the people have
lost, on a deeper level, their sense of dignity, the sense for the future
and the possibility for their survival and a come-back to the company
of mature nations of the world.
Each person may carry within themselves
a suicidal drive which is everybody's torment and a joint sorrow. But
turning their illness, their suicidal tendencies into a living style
and a way of thinking and acting on behalf of an entire nation and expecting
them to accept it, equalls the failure in the understanding of the human
nature. One thing, obvious from all that has been happening in Kosovo,
is certain and must be said. There seem to be public, or maybe secret,
plan and aspiration on the part of the international community to turn
Kosovo into some kind of international protecorate. I do not believe
I will live long enough, God's willing that will be, to see Kosovo without
the presence of the international forces which usually, after having
stayed in another's land, another's country, another's home for too
long, turn into an occupying force. At present Kosovo is a protectorate.
In a long run it will become a NATO pact protectorate but also, by the
looks of it, it is being prepared to become an independent state which,
one day, will be incorporated into a Greater Albania. Whether this is
the plan of the European community I cannot fathom. Anyway, all that
is taking place in Kosovo and Metohia at this moment points out in that
direction.
Also, whether the people will gather strenght to establish
an unbiased and a genuine relationship with the international community,
to find new ways out of this misery, the Kosovo straits, depends on
God and God's intentions but also on us all. Let this booklet about
crusified Kosovo give us an incentive that will show our joint responsibility,
before God, before history and before the modern world, that will help
restore our dignity and enable our come-back, with due respect of all
human rights, to our ancient lands, our ancient hearths.
May God grant it and let it happen.
Thank you.
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