DEMOLITION OF PLACES OF WORSHIP IN THE WAR

IN CROATIA AND BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

The Obliteration of Spiritual Roots

Summary: From the outbreak of the war in the territory of the former Yugoslavia hundreds of religious edifices - Orthodox, Catholic and Muslim - have been pulled down. According to incomplete data, 438 Orthodox and 450 Catholic churches and 651 mosques have been devastated or destroyed. Some of them are of great historic value. Many valuables have been plundered, to be later offered for sale on the "black market". Most of the religious buildings were not demolished in war operations, but subsequently as a part of the plan of "ethnic cleansing" of specific territories. No side has convicted any perpetrator for the crime of deliberate destruction of places of worship. Each religious community only publishes data on the sufferings it had to endure at the hands of the enemy.

AIM, BEOGRAD, March 19

"Why does the "Voice of the Council" mention only the Catholic churches destroyed. Why does it not also publish which Orthodox and other churches were demolished. All of them are houses of God. Of course, the other religious communities and papers too, do not mention the Catholic churches destroyed. All sides are silent about the horrendous abuses and manipulations, thus directly opposing the Gospel and cathechism and what not else. Many church dignitaries are aware of that, but only the rare and honourable ones will mention it".

These words of Dr.Marko Orsolic, the well-known Franciscan theologian and Director of the Institute for Inter-Religious Dialogue in Sarajevo eloquently testify to the specific media blockade existing in religious communities and papers as well. He is one of the rare men of religion who say that publicly, sparing no one. Only a man for whom ecumenism is above all theological and other differences can do that.

The fact that the leaderships of all religious communities enumerate only their demolished places of worship shows that everyone views this destructive urge, which has assumed the proportions of unheard of barbarism, exclusively from his own angle. Thus, barbarians in one's own ranks are concealed and other peoples satanized to unimagined limits. Thus, like in politics, sinners are always on the other side.

Instead of condemning all those who desecrate and raze down places of worship, theories are offered on whose church is more valuable, not only in architectural terms but also by its contents. According to those "criteria", Orthodox churches contain most valuables, primarily because of their iconostases and liturgical objects, while Catholic churches "have all that to a lesser extent" and where mosques are concerned "only the buildings" are at stake. Human casualties could also be evaluated according to that "logic" - by the beauty of their face, for instance.

Up to now only the Serbian Orthodox Church has made a list, although incomplete, of the church riches destroyed and looted in the war. Slobodan Mileusnic, M.S., Director of the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade is in charge of this task.

He says, for AIM, that 438 Orthodox religious edifices were destroyed or damaged in the war in Croatia and B&H. Of that 154 churches have been completely demolished, and 175 have been greatly damaged by shelling or explosives. He draws attention to the Eparchy of Zvornik - Tuzla, in which Moslem or Croat armed formations destroyed 32 churches and damaged 26 to a large extent.

Some of the sacral facilities were razed to the ground at the time of religious holidays, which represents a drastic outburst of hatred or revenge. This fate befell the Orthodox Church in Derventa on Ascension Day, and the building of the Eparchy of Gornji Karlovac with its invaluable religious and historic riches on Christmas, December 25, 1993. This act met with the condemnation of the Croat state and ecclesiastical authorities, but that will not bring back this edifice, nor the manuscripts dating from the 15th century.

What is the reason for this destruction of places of worship like in no other war in more recent history - we asked Mileusnic:

• It is difficult to give a true analysis of the overall spiritual havoc wrought in the war still being waged. I am deeply convinced that it is a consequence of the overall spiritual climate after World War II when God was killed in the people and some other values sought, which have, as we see, led to this state of affairs. I am certain that no true believer, irrespective of the faith he belongs to, could attack a place of worship, let alone tear it down. Let me recall the words of the Apostle Paul from the Holy Bible: "Whosoever should destroy a house of the Lord, shall be destroyed by the Lord". In addition, Islam recognizes Christianity and Christ as a prophet, not to mention the joint Catholic and Orthodox saints. Even this is proof enough that no religion or holy book give a motive for destroying places of worship, whoever they belong to. Their destruction is the negation of culture, civilization... The culprits must be taken to task one day" - says Mileusnic, adding that he has no data about the demolished Catholic and Moslem sacral edifices, but that he knows that a large number is in question.

The Roman Catholic Church on the territory of the former Yugoslavia operates with the figure of 450 destroyed or considerably damaged churches, chapels and other religious facilities. None of the church prelates we talked to knows the precise number. The main reason for that, they say, is that Catholic priests do not have access to 123 parishes in Croatia. They also point out that both the priests and the flock have been expelled from them and the churches destroyed.

According to ecclesiastic sources there were 830,000 Catholics in B&H before the war. Half of them had to leave their homes. The church authorities rather vaguely mention that "most religious facilities have been damaged or destroyed". A frequently adduced example is the Nunnery in Bijelo Polje, near Mostar, which has been razed to the ground, as well as the burning of the building of the Bishopric in the pre-war political and cultural center of Herzegovina, when over 50,000 books of exceptional value were burned.

For the time being, as far as we could learn, all data about destroyed Catholic churches are referred to the Secretariat of the Conference of Bishops of Croatia which will issue more exhaustive information. It already exists for some episcopies. Thus, the Archbisopric Ordinariate in Zadar published that 40 Catholic churches have been completely destroyed in that region, while the St.Paskvalin Church in Tinj, commune of Benkovac, was the last to be destroyed.

It is also known that Stupska Church in Sarajevo Polje, which was also a shrine, was razed to the ground already at the beginning of the war. This is at the same time the only Christian place of worship in Sarajevo which has been completely destroyed. All the others, both Catholic and Orthodox, have remained standing, with larger or smaller damage from shells, fired from Trebevic. The Cathedral, as well as the Old Orthodox Church, conduct regular Sunday masses and other services.

There were several versions about the number of completely destroyed or damaged mosques in B&H. The figure ranged between 700 and 900.

According to the figures of the Islamic Community, 651 mosques were destroyed in this war, but that number is not final because data are not available for a large number of smaller settlements, which are under the control of Serb or Croat armed formations. 153 Moslem places of worship have sustained large damage. At the same time, 60 imams (Moslem priests) were killed, and over 200 expelled.

38 mosques in Sarajevo were razed to the ground.

The chain of demolishing mosques started in Bijeljina last year, where, outside war operations, 6 of these sacral edifices were razed to the ground by explosives. This was followed by the destruction of mosques in Trebinje and Banja Luka, in which all 16 of them were successively destroyed. Some of them were oustanding monuments of culture, such as Ferhadija, built in 1579 - 80.

Because of all that, the adherents of Islam followed the consecration of the foundations of the Orthodox Cathedral (Saborna crkva) in Banja Luka with great dissatisfaction, only two months after the destruction of the last mosque in this town. Despite the fact that the visit of the Serbian Patriarch His Holiness Pavle to Bosanska Krajina had been arranged at an earlier date, this dedication, to some, resembled the "building of an Orthodox temple on the ruins of the mosque".

Sacral valuables gradually started appearing on the "free market" as contraband in high demand.

As it happened some long ago plundered valuables appeared in this war trade after 40 years and were returned where they belong.

People from all religious communities generally agree that most temples were not destroyed by war operations. In some cases their foundations were bulldozed and the construction of different facilities soon started on the same spot.

The lot of religious facilities on the soil of the former Yugoslavia is another cruel indicator of ethnic cleansing being a part of war plans. "Proof" of the existence of some other peoples does not fit into them. It is therefore only normal that not a single perpetrator of those crimes has been identified so far nor brought to trial.

Ejub Stitkovac