Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met today with the Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej in Belgrade today, Tanjug news agency reported.
Vucic said that the situation in Kosovo and Metohija gets more complicated every time they meet, adding Serbia was left nothing but to fight. He thanked the Patriarch Irinej because the Church has always been by its people and the state.
A group of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) Bishops have distanced themselves from the SOC statement following the Holy Synod session and a meeting with the President Aleksandar Vucic, Belgrade-based Danas daily writes on Monday.
“You have to make this fateful decision to stay where you are, and this is not the decision of an individual, it is the decision of the Serbian people,” the Patriarch of Serbian Orthodox Church Irinej said today at the Church of St. Dimitrije in Mitrovica North, KoSSev portal reported.
The Patriarch has been visiting monasteries, churches, and meeting with Kosovo Serbs for the past four days. He sent clear messages against ethnic partition and delimitation, emphasizing on the other hand that Serbia should not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.
Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej who is paying a visit to Kosovo and Metohija said in Prizren on Sunday that “what we hear today about some sort of division, a compromise, is something that Serbian people would never be able to accept, in particular people from Kosovo and Metohija,” KoSSev portal reported.
The central state ceremony of the 20th anniversary of the NATO aggression and the Day of Remembrance of the victims was held in Nis, south Serbia, late on Sunday. The day marked 20 years since the western military alliance started its attacks on Serbia, that lasted 78 days.
Addressing the gathering President Aleksandar Vucic said that the death of 2,500 civilians during the NATO aggression, and especially 79 children, will always be a crime for us.
Editor of Voice of Church, deacon Ljubomir Rankovic told BETA news agency he thinks the stance of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) on Kosovo will never change.
He recalled the stance on Kosovo was confirmed at Holy Synod Assembly session in May last year, and the stance is that Kosovo is an unalienable part of Serbia, and there could be no talks about Kosovo being detached from Serbia.
Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej said Serbian society needs unity in order to preserve and defend Kosovo, since it would not be defended by quarrels, B92 reports.
Following the ceremony held in the Vracar (Belgrade) Municipality, on the occasion of Saint Sava Day, Patriarch Irinej said Serbs are a small nation, and must be united in order to survive.
“Unity is a foundation of our Church and state. The union of Church and the state kept us, and if we didn’t have it, we would have vanished as a nation,” Patriarch Irinej noted.
The Church does not change its stance on Kosovo and Metohija, Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej said in Gracanica, where he pays the visit together with the Patriarch of the Antioch and the Entire East, Jovan X, Radio KIM reports today.
Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) Patriarch Irinej told Vecernje Novosti daily today that the Church does not support frozen conflict in Kosovo, but however, it is neither for “recognizing the fait accompli achieved by injustice, aggression, violence and crimes.”
Patriarch Irinej also underlined that when it comes to Kosovo “one should not go for hasty and provisional solutions.”
Orthodox Christianity is threatened by a schism greater than that between the East and the West, Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Bishop Irinej has warned.