The Mayor of Pristina, Shpend Ahmeti, who comes from the ranks of Self-determination movement said to RTK2 that issue of legalization the Church of Christ the Savior in Pristina is going to be dealt with by the court and added that this issue is more of a political nature. He also described recent urination of protesters in the church as indecent and ignorant.
“Process of legalization of all illegally constructed buildings in Pristina is ongoing, and at the moment we do not have any documentation for that church. From this reason we asked Serbian Orthodox Church to submit application for legalization with all documentation in order that we could check whether the building has been constructed in line with Kosovo laws. They failed to do that and explained that they do not recognize that it is about illegal construction,” said Ahmeti and added that this issue is more of a political nature, thus he requested from the government and the Ministry for Spatial Planning to deal with it. Pristina Municipality considers the church as illegal construction since the deadline for applications with regard to legalization has expired on 15 September and Serbian Orthodox Church did not submit any documentation.
Urination of a group of protesters in the church is indecent and was carried out due to the ignorance, said Ahmeti and added that Serbian Orthodox Church should request assistance form the Ministry of Interior with regard to this problem since security of the church is in jurisdiction of central institutions.
Ahmeti also said that a year ago he had informal conversation about the Church of the Christ the Savior in Pristina with the Abbot of Dečani Monastery Sava Janjic, to whom he conveyed that majority of Albanians consider the church as a construction of Milosevic’s regime, thus it will always be a difficult political questions which should be discussed extensively.
Group of protesters has urinated in the church on 9 January, during demonstrations staged in Pristina by opposition parties who asked annulment of the Brussels agreement on creation of the Association/Community of Serb-majority municipalities and annulment of the demarcation agreement with Montenegro.
