Serbian Patriarch Irinej Photo: EPA/FEHIM DEMIR
Samir Kajosevic, September 23, 2019
NGO
says Church leader should not be allowed in to attend a celebration
after claiming Montenegro treats Serbs worse than Croatian fascist state
did in World War II.
The
Montenegrin Movement, an NGO, has called on the authorities to ban the
head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Irinej, from entering
Montenegro for celebrations marking 800 years of the Serbian Church’s
autocephaly, or ecclesiastical independence.
The central
celebration in Montenegro will be held at the Podlastva Monastery in
Budva Municipality on September 27, and the arrival of Irinej has been
announced.
The NGO on Monday lodged a complaint on Monday with the
Supreme State Prosecutor’s Office also against the Serbian Church’s
chief cleric in Montenegto, Metropolitan Amfilohije, for “acting against
constitutional order and security, inciting national, racial and
religious hatred”.
“We demand that the prosecutor initiate
proceedings to determine which persons have committed or intend to
commit crimes and take measures to punish them and prohibit the
gathering. We demand that Serbian Patriarch Irinej be banned from
entering Montenegro,” the complaint reads.
The NGO wants the
Patriarch banned for a statement he made in July, in which he said that
the large Serbian community in Montenegro was now treated worse than
Serbs were in the NDH, a World War II Nazi puppet state in Croatia –
which slaughtered tens of thousands of Serbs as part of a genocidal
campaign.
The Montenegrin authorities deny discriminating against
Serbs and have not commented yet on the call to ban the Patriarch from
the country. The celebration of eight centuries of autocephaly in the
Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro has already sparked controversy,
following the installation of 30 billboards in Budva heralding the
planned celebration as “the largest gathering of the Serbian people this
millennium”.
The organising committee for the celebration
includes Bishop Amfilohije – well known for his pro-Serbian views – and
the heads of the local government in Budva, from the pro-Russian and
pro-Serbian Democratic Front, DF. Municipal officials told the media
that they expected more than 10,000 people to attend the celebration.
The
pro-Western government in Montenegro has long had tense relations with
the Serbian Church, the largest denomination in the multi-ethnic
country. The government considers the Church hostile to the independence
of the country, and generally too pro-Serbian and pro-Russian.
The Church accuses the government of trying routinely to undermine it and strip the country of its Serbian heritage.
The
two sides clashed again in May over a draft law on religious freedom
that would include a register of all religious buildings and sites
formerly owned by the independent kingdom of Montenegro before it became
part of the Serb-dominated Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in
1918.
The Serbian Church said it suspected the register would be
used to confiscate its property. Patriarch Irinej warned Montenegrin
President Milo Djukanovic at the time that his actions might lead to a
formal curse, or anathema, being declared. Djukanovic responded that
Montenegro was determined to establish the rule of law.
balkaninsight.com