Divisions in the Serbian Orthodox Church
WHO IS ADVISING THE PATRIARCH
Call of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) on the Milosevic - Markovic couple at the reception given in honour of the birthday of a non-existent state, brought to the surface the relation of the Church towards the regime and all the divisions in its top ranks.
AIM, PODGORICA, December 17, 1999 (AIM correspondent from Belgrade)
Instead of appeasing and calming down the disunited and by years of misery and misfortune exhausted flock and people, the Serbian patriarch has become the apple of discord among the Serbs. Should he have gone to the reception of the President of the state who is considered one of the biggest Serbian squanderers and all because of the so much questioned holiday such as the Day of the Republic? Did he go of his own volition, because he thought that it would be proper for him to accept the invitation of his chief of state, or someone of his associates equally close to him and the regime, persuaded him to go and pay his respects to Slobodan Milosevic, whose resignation he had demanded four months ago, and thus once more force the Serbian Orthodox Church to serve as cat's paw for bridging the growing gap between the President and the people and help save it?
Ever since that reception of November 29, - so deftly marketed by the state media that the physically tiny SPC head was clearly seen in the President's company - the Serbs, who lack everything except divisions, have taken two sides: on the one are those who justify and on the other those who condemn the Patriarch's visit to Milosevic-Markovic couple. The national holiday of the non-existent state is long gone, but the local public is still preoccupied by the same question: why has Kir Pavle, with the overall moral strength and authority embodied in the role and mission of the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, once again come out in favour of Milosevic?
The dust would have possibly settled and the reason to discuss the divisions within the Serbian Orthodox Church would no longer matter or, at least temporarily, would have been neutralised had not the Raska-Prizren Bishop, Artemije, issued a statement a week after the reception. This is the Archpriest who has inherited the St.Sava's throne in Kosovo and Metohija from none else but Kir Pavle himself, and the man who is the most devoted and most consistent fighter for the Serbian survival in the multi-ethnic Kosovo and Metohija, which gives him some right to address his Patriarch in an open letter. Already by the title "Your Holiness, Desperate Cuts Call for Desperate Cures", the Bishop has shown that he would not spare the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose paying of respects to Milosevic he saw as "the reinforcement of the Destroyer's shaky throne".
"I beseech you in the name of the living God never to put us again in a situation in which we cannot face our flock and our people. After all that Mr.Milosevic has done to the Serbian (and not only Serbian) people in the last ten years; after the tragedy he has brought in Kosovo and Metohija both on the Albanian and the Serbian people, and especially in the last two years; after the Serbian Orthodox Church has resolutely demanded Milosevic's resignation and stepping down so as to save the people and the state; after repeated Church's position on the need to restore the monarchy in Serbia and of all the legitimate rights of the House of Karadjordjevic of which they were deprived by the decision of the godless communist authorities; after all this and much more - your acceptance of Milosevic's invitation and the fact that you personally congratulated him the birthday of a state that died ten years ago, a birthday which this year has turned into "the national celebration of the abolition of the monarchy" of the Serbian people, has shocked and puzzled many of our brethren archpriests, honourable clergy and monkery and the vast majority of orthodox Serbs..."
Without any gentleness, Bishop Artemije has reminded the "shepherd of the people" that by this pilgrimage he has prolonged, as he called it, Milosevic's death agony for God knows how long at the time when "the entire nation is going at it hammer and tongs to free itself of this loosing and non-popular regime" and get Serbia out of the abyss in which the hands of its "wise leader" have pushed it. According to the Bishop, for over eight years, the Serbian Orthodox Church has supported the criminal regime of Slobodan Milosevic, and has turned its back on him and asked his resignation "only when it became dissatisfied with his success in waging wars".
No one before Artemije has publicly made such grave accusations against the Serbian Orthodox Church! In his letter to the Patriarch, Bishop Artemije also touched upon an extremely delicate issue - division within the SPC - which has been the talk of the town the last few years. He thought that the Patriarch's act has "finally brought into the open the well hidden and denied fact about divisions and disagreements in the top ranks of the Serbian Orthodox Church, at least when the relation to Mr.Milosevic's regime is concerned". According to the Bishop, that cannot and should not be hidden any longer. It is as obvious as it is obvious that the Patriarch's participation in the "celebration" did not meet with the Church approval. "Your Holiness, that was a private thing done by you and all those who were there, although uninvited".
The Raska-Prizren Bishop has not only opened a box with the well-kept secret about the dissension among the Serbian priests regarding the "Milosevic question", but has also, in a way, disputed Patriarch's right to represent the Serbian Orthodox Church in this matter. Interestingly enough, those at which he aimed did not respond to Artemije's open letter, but the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Coast, Amfilohije who, beside Artemije and Bishop Atanasije (Jevtic), is considered a great opponent of the Milosevic's regime. "If I were in Bishop Artemije's place, I would not have addressed the Patriarch with a letter. I would have asked him personally", stated the Metropolitan officially obviously not wanting to deny Bishop's claims but to question the way they were presented. On the other hand, unofficially, the Metropolitan stated that the "Patriarch was obviously mistakenly informed that November 29, was a joint holiday of Serbia and Montenegro and not the day marking the abolition of the monarchy".
According to the Metropolitan, the Patriarch was obviously "ill-advised". Asked who had advised the Patriarch, Amfilohije laconically responded: "You know who his advisers are". It is practically impossible to find anyone in the Serbian Orthodox Church who will agree to talk about divisions and "advisers". As for Bishop Artemije, who promised Patriarch never to send him open letters again, he thinks that he has said all that had to be said in this regard. He thinks that the Serbian public is not so ignorant and uninformed as to be unaware who is who in the Serbian Orthodox Church, who is behaving in which way, who is keeping company with whom, who is advocating what stands. In other words, in order to work out a puzzle about the relation of the Serbian Orthodox Church to Milosevic's regime and of holy fathers to him personally, it only needs to use the facts!
But, first about the Patriarch. As it was noticed that he went to the mentioned reception, it was equally noticed that some fifteen days earlier he did not appear there where everyone expected him and where his presence was both natural and needed. It was the Szentendre Assembly organised under the auspices of his Royal Highness the Crown Prince Alexander, at which the most prominent representatives from the mother country and the Serbian diaspora, in which three million Serbs live, have joined forces and for three days searched for way of pulling out the unfortunate Serbia from the abyss and Milosevic's claws.
The Patriarch did not even come to the Szentendre Cathedral, the monument marking the Serbian migrations and sufferings, where a liturgy for the salvation of Serbia by which this Assembly was concluded, was held. In return, only a few days earlier he officiated the forty-days memorial service for Veselin Boskovic, a prominent member of the Serbian Renewal Movement and Danica Draskovic's brother killed on the Lazarevac road in early October under still unexplained circumstances. It is said that the Patriarch is under the great influence of the Bishop of Banat, Irinej, who is considered the power behind the throne within the SPC and a dignitary very close to Milosevic-Markovic couple. It is said that that influence is responsible for a very hard and definite stand of the Holy Synod of Bishops, which on June 15, demanded of the "current president of the state and his government to resign in the interest of the people and for its salvation", which the Holy Synod of Bishops confirmed and which was soon after that revised and softened at an extraordinary Synod.
Like Pontius Pilate, the Church has always washed its hands of the publicly stated fact that under Milosevic's rule "numerous internal problems and contradictions, and the isolation of our state" cannot be resolved. The Patriarch's attendance at the reception was the cherry on the top! Incidentally, Bishop Irinej is considered a very powerful man in the orthodox world of today. He is in charge of the international cooperation of the Serbian Orthodox Church with the two largest patriarchates - Moscow and Ecumenical - and also the Athenian Archbishopric. Those well-versed in the SPC relations claim that this Bishop has taken charge of all the most important issues and that his power and great influence on the Patriarch result from his good connections with the Milosevic-Markovic family and membership in the Athenian Masonic Lodge. Although it is probably neither expected nor demanded of a bishop, he even regularly visits the Director of the "Politika", also well-known for his connections with the most powerful Serbian family.
Bishop Irinej will accompany the Patriarch to Jerusalem for the celebration of 2000 years of Christianity. He is taking the Branicevo Bishop Ignjatije with him. Bishop's inseparable friend, and not only at receptions organised by the authorities, is also father Filaret, another riddle of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Until recently, he was head of the monastery of St.Archangel Gabriel in Zemun and became the Bishop of Mileseva late this May. He was ordained by Patriarch Pavle and on that occasion in his speech, he uttered the biblical words of his namesake, the Apostle, that anyone "wishing the bishopric, wishes good service, but the bishop should be without fault". According to the top clerical ranks, Bishop Filaret, whose biography states that "with Patriarch Pavle's blessing", both in his monastery as well as in "the regions caught by the war" he engaged in humanitarian work, is without fault. Quite the opposite, the fact that the papers have published a picture of him wearing a habit and carrying a kalashnikov, is considered Filaret's virtue. The detail with the gun, as well as his photo holding a skull "of a Serbian child killed by the Ustashas" were omitted, but the biography is full of his accomplishments which explain his rise in the church hierarchy.
At the "table of love" which is prepared on such occasions, the first toast was proposed by Metropolitan Amfilohije. He congratulated Filaret on becoming the Bishop of an ancient eparchy where St.Sava's grave was located. He did not say that he deserved it, but as long as he congratulated him that goes without saying. Apart from archpriests, there were people from the secular world. For example, Jugoslav Kostic, a prominent and extremely active member of the SFRY Presidency in the stage of its disintegration and a very respectable former communist activist, who was there on account of his function as the Federal Minister of Religion (!?). This detail very tellingly speaks of the relation of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the authorities, primarily how the top clerical ranks did not show any disgust at or, God forbid, distancing from former communist activists who were largely responsible for the break-up of the second Yugoslavia and terrible sufferings of the Serbian people. Kostic's toast in Filaret's honour that "after NATO aggression the state will do its best so as to award the Church a more prominent place in the society it so rightfully deserves" was received as a great consolation.
Several days later, those same archpriests demanded the resignation of the entire Federal Government and of Presidents of Yugoslavia and Serbia. Some time later, they gave up, and even later the "walking saint", as the believing and non-believing Serbs sometimes used to call their Patriarch, will together with his "advisers" magnify Milosevic's celebration of the birthday of the non-existent state and show the people that the church leadership is with their president and that the resignation demand was just a snow job or, at least, an incidental error. Is it, after all this, possible to discern an answer to the question why the Serbs are not church people and why is the Serbian Orthodox Church scoring such poor results in spreading Orthodoxy. When the clerical leaders are not true to their faith and are divided, why should the people be any different? Orthodox clergy was always divided into moderates and zealots. But, who could say that, for example, Bishop Artemije is not moderate when he criticises the church for cooperating with the regime, and that Irinej is moderate when he praises both the church and the regime and, at the same time, watches the ruin of that state and people, by that same regime.
Biserka Matic
(AIM)
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