Metropolitan Amfilohije Radovic, a Serbian Orthodox bishop, the current head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, said on Thursday that who called a referendum on Kosovo status “has no sound mind,” Kossev website reported.
Participating at the celebration of the Serb religious holiday of Vidovdan in Kosovo’s Serb monastery of Gracanica, some 10 kilometres east of the capital Pristina, the Bishop said that those who did not understand what Kosovo was wanted to divide it, while “only one who has no reason, no knowledge, no wisdom can call a referendum” on Kosovo.
Serbs celebrate Vidovdan as the day of the Battle for Kosovo on June 28, 1389, which they lost to the Turks.
The Bishop, known as a hardcore nationalist among the Serbian Orthodox Church’s dignitaries, apparently referred to Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic, though neither he nor his closest associates have ever directly mentioned calling a referendum.
However, the President said that people would decide what then prompted the opposition to accuse Vucic of “hiding behind the will of people,” what he vehemently denied.
Earlier this year, during the Orthodox Christmas, celebrated on January 7, Amfilohije said that Vucic’s politics led to the “betrayal of Serbia and Kosovo.”
The statement drew harsh criticism from circles close to the President and Amfilohije later added he did not have anything against Vucic personally, but that Kosovo was the vital issue for the nation’s destiny.
Speaking about the idea of the partition of Kosovo, Amfilohije said that parcelling it meant “dividing the holy bones of the Serb kings” who ruled the territory in the 14th century before the Turkish occupation, adding that only those who did not have a clue about Kosovo could talk about its partition.
Amfilohije said that this region went through different kinds of tyranny, but that “no one ever divided Kosovo, nor did anyone call a referendum.”
Serb Orthodox Church is legally separated from the state, but its influence is not marginal, especially with young people who grew up in the aftermath of the Socialist period and following the violent break-up of former Yugoslavia during which religions had played a substantial and mostly nationalistic role.
See at:http://rs.n1info.com/a399769/English/NEWS/Serb-Church-Bishop-warns-state-about-Kosovo.html
