Metropolitan Irinej: The people who overcome difficulties and for whom the sun
always rises – that is us Serbians
Given your authority and influence, we invite you, aware of the heavy burden we place on You with such a task, to publicly as well as advisory, assess the current extremely concerning socio-political and spiritual conditions in Serbia.
They come as a consequence of internal decades-long fractures and a heavy legacy, but also of global, unprecedentedly bad circumstances. Where are we today, how capable are our governing elites of handling this geopolitical chaos in which American-centric elites
resist the weakening of the unipolar world, and also strengthening its alternative, BRICS?
Which way must we turn, as a social community, but also as individuals, whom to trust, what to respect, what to fight for, and which forces and values to reject?
What is worthy of our trust and – both collective and personal – choice and the
sacrifices we endure and which we will, unfortunately, continue to endure?
The word authority has different meanings, and when the word influence is added, then the one described as an authoritative person will easily understand that he does not deserve it. Since the epithets you use to describe me are an uncritical assessment of a good friend, I can’t recognize myself in them; especially, I do not wish to be authoritarian, nor to impose my opinions and positions, not even my faith, the faith in Christ the Savior, which I consider to be the only true, inexhaustible value of my life, on anyone, in any way.
I believe that it is perfectly sensible to deal with the questions of who represents an authority today, for example for the younger generations, and who is influential, how he is self-fulfilled, and so on. These issues are actually contained in the question you posed to me: where are we…, what is worthy of trust, and so on. The younger generations, to whose future all our answers should be directed, jokingly reply about complex questions like yours: that is a million-dollar question. I do not think that way. I do not believe that in choosing a value choice we should be overly burdened by undeniable geopolitical chaos, wars, technological and biotechnological challenges and dilemmas, NATO, BRICS, the East or the West, nor anything outside our authentic, Serbian civilizational horizon, which is so vast, historically grounded, rich in spiritual priceless treasures. That is the „endless blue circle and within it a star“ that Vuk Isaković, the protagonist of Migrations, sees as an incomprehensible personal and national panorama in which we live and from which, for centuries, we observe all external phenomena and temptations and give our own answers to them. That endless circle was drawn around us eight hundred and fifty years ago by Rastko Nemanjić, Saint Sava. In the center of the circle, like the brightest star, shines the Image of Christ, whose light, reflecting in the personality of Saint Sava, our guide, illuminates all ofus. Thus, the eight hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Saint Sava, which we will celebrate in 2025, if God wills it, is an opportunity for us, following the value choice made by Saint Sava eight centuries ago, to respond to the questions that are before us, which you have partially listed: whom to believe, what to respect, what to fight for, and
which forces and values to reject? I see no significant difference in the historical circumstances in which Saint Sava made his choices from those in which we are making ours. We, I believe and hope, will not be mistaken because we, like our grandfathers and fathers, are guided by the teachings and work of Saint
The themes of our national and state survival, historical trials, and geopolitical fate are repeated in these discussions, but in a way that removes any possibility of their „monotony and exhaustion.“ The global issues and drama are indeed intensifying and worryingly deepening – until we reach the present, somewhat new moment, in which it is, understandably, even measured and moderate, stated/written that we are
contemporaries of the „struggle of Orthodoxy and Satanism,“ a struggle in which the West declaratively aims for the complete destruction of Orthodoxy as the „greatest danger“ to the global order! The strategic positions that were once named – conspiracy theory and behind-the-scenes plans are becoming part of the public discourse that is announced, discussed, and implemented without hesitation.How to live and how to fight against the circumstances of such a rampant and manifested evil mind/plans, which modern history does not remember?
You are right! Much more than our ability to reflect on the phenomena and challenges of reality through interesting conversation, reality itself erases any possibility that not only our conversations but also everyday life acquires the characteristics of monotony and exhaustion. The hilly Balkans are often said to suffer from an excess of history. Supposedly, the world is heading towards the end of history, while we, the destructive Balkans, produce it for export. The truth is completely different. Fukuyama’s, fundamentally Marxist thesis about the end of history will remain just a pale, transparent utopia, like everything it was imagined upon. Before our eyes, the so-called liberal-democratic idea is disappearing and transforming into its authoritarian opposite, if not into fascism, which, for example, through cancel culture and similar movements discredits free-thinking scientists, artists, intellectuals, and creators, exposing them to public disgrace, loss of employment at universities, and so on. The West, in the face of cheap Chinese products, throws the mantra of the market as the only regulator of the economy at our feet, thus imposing draconian taxes and tariffs. Europeans awaken from the dream of a borderless Europe to the voice of the muezzin calling his faithful to prayer, while armed police defend the borders from migrants from the south and east. Meanwhile, we, the peoples of the Balkans, not only independently produce history but also have great and not so great powers export it for us, thanks to immature or corrupt political elites, in the most tragic form – by fratricidal wars.
But to reach the present moment, in which the West, as stated, declaratively strives to weaken or even destroy Orthodoxy, we must take into account that there are also different forms of fanaticism among us. They are the result of psychological hypersensitivity, perhaps inevitable in our circumstances, but also of various mass media and network deceptions. Therefore, we must fully understand the terms. Namely, the term West or, now, collective West, in the context of the struggle between Orthodoxy and Satanism, can only be used in relation to a relatively narrow circle of political and social elites. We cannot attribute the intention to destroy Orthodoxy to the ordinary people, who are in various ways, as elsewhere, also victims of their elites. At least occasionally, it is necessary to note this in public discourse, because I do not want, any more than you do, for our conversation, in the slightest degree, to contribute to the incitement of intolerance and the fanaticization of anyone. This must be carefully taken into account when we speak of either the West or the East, either Christianity or Islam. Every encounter or contact with Christians of the West or with spiritual leaders of Islam gives way to fundamentalists or instructed groups of fanatics in our environment to accuse everyone in turn (except themselves, of course) of betraying Orthodoxy and Serbdom. On the other hand, it is clear that certain political, economic, business, probably also occult elites of Western countries, some openly, and othersless openly, are waging a struggle against the Orthodox Church.
That is the same struggle between good and evil that has been waged in the world since Christ was crucified, and Saint Archdeacon Stephen was stoned. Today, since such a struggle is also being waged against our Church, our Orthodox people, we strongly feel its intensity. I mean, the last three decades. But, the terror against the people and the Church by the Ustaše, German Nazis, Ballists, and others in World War II, as well as the post-war terror of the Communist Party was exactly the struggle between Orthodoxy and Satanism. It is the same unceasing struggle! But even in calmer periods of freer life of the Orthodox Church, when there is no visible persecution, when a certain comfort is even felt, falls occur, through excessive influence of secular factors on the church structure. We are witnesses to this today. We are witnesses to a kind of tragedy when the hierarchy of one local Church, in cooperation with or by executing the orders of secular, more precisely global, factors and forces, works against another local Church and its faithful people. This is a sad and tragic fact. And that hierarchy does not want to notice that because of this, people are dying, Orthodox Christians as well as their brothers are dying, churches are burning and being destroyed.
And finally, since this is a process that has just begun, and its final outcome is unknown, I’d like to add two-three notes. We are witnesses to changes, at least by observing the political orientation of the peoples of the West in recent years. The pseudoliberal political forces, the proponents and advocates of globalization either fall or rapidly lose the primacy. In neighboring Hungary, for example, sovereignly rule the people who do not hide that they are Christians. Also, in other European countries, movements advocating traditional Christian values are prevailing. Statements by the newly elected President of the USA, Trump, and his associates about the importance of the Bible and their strong opposition to the grotesque, truly satanic gender ideology and practices, along with announcements of peacemaking efforts, bring hope. Of course, we must approach everything with caution, but if there is even a glimmer of light that will, at least temporarily, on some mutually beneficial grounds, ease the West’s intolerance towards the Orthodox Church, it should be accepted with approval.
The time has come for thoughts on the unthinkable – humanity seems to be walking towards the abyss of apocalyptic ruin. You have always warned that for Orthodox Christians, the apocalypse is not merely a tale of destruction and self-destruction, but rather the later Revelation of the fullness of divine victory and the transformation of the world into eschatological fullness. Is it forever darkening or is it finally dawning?
The fact that our people are turned towards the East, from where „the Sun of righteousness, Christ our God, shines,“ as we sing in a liturgical hymn, means that it is
always dawning for us. We are the people who overcome difficulties and temptations. In recent decades, despite everything, we sing with full lungs and full hearts: from Kosovo, the dawn is breaking! Gračanica, all in splendor, welcomes Vidovdan! With humility, with trust in God, in years when it seems to some that it is forever darkening, that all four horsemen of the Apocalypse are arriving with their banners unfurled, we turn to Gračanica, the Patriarchate of Peć, and Dečani, for we know that where suffering is greatest, where the cross of crucifixion is, salvation and resurrection come. Therefore, we rejoice in every day that the Lord grants us, in every day we experience a little Revelation, discovering the beauty of God’s creation and redemption in Christ. But we know that one day we will awaken in the unsetting, eternal, and ageless „eighth day,“ in our heavenly Homeland, for which we constantly long, in a day when we will not vanish into nothingness but where, in the transformed „new earth“ and on the „new heaven,“ all our prayers, all our hopes, all our longings, all our hunger and thirst for the Heavenly Father and for our eternal brothers and sisters in God will be fulfilled.
You, Your Grace, found yourself in the full church life at a moment when there was a great neo-patristic revival and when many were writing and acting, from Father Justin, through Georgy Florovsky, to the prematurely departed Panayotis Nellas. You yourself have dealt with crucial topics, such as the theology of Saint Mark of Ephesus, New Testament theology, but also the question of Serbian covenant theology in the key of the Gospel. What is the state of contemporary Orthodox theology? Can it meet all the challenges of life in the age of „post-truth“?
Before I answer this question, it seems to me that I should briefly explain the concept of the great neo-patristic revival, as You aptly and precisely call it, or the endeavor of neo- patristic synthesis, as it is most commonly said in theological circles. The adjective patristic and the noun patristics come from Greek and Latin. The adjective means paternal, holy paternal, or relating to the holy Fathers of the Church, which refers to those saints who are also her greatest theologians, and the noun refers to the entirety of their theological teachings or their spiritual world and spiritual heritage as a whole. Consequently, the adjective neo-Patristic that you use – otherwise practically unknown to us outside a narrow circle of the most informed theologians – denotes a spiritual and cultural phenomenon from the past that is not dead, but has, due to historical circumstances, or rather misfortunes, „faded“ or „died out“, and thus it needs to be revived, awakened, and renewed. Specifically, according to the theorist of neo-Patristic synthesis, Georgy Florovsky, after centuries of „Babylonian captivity“ of modern Orthodox theology, which during its duration did not develop naturally, organically, but under greater or lesser influences of either Roman Catholicism or Protestantism, it needs to be liberated from that state of spiritual slavery – in other words, it needs to be returned from the wrong path to its original way, to return it to its origins, theological methodology, and the teachings of the Fathers of the Church, and not to some scholastic (“school”, “learned”, “scientific”…) authorities. Our Saint Justin of Ćelije, a contemporary and admirer of Florovsky (and vice versa), did not formally and theoretically elaborate the idea of neo-Patristic awakening, but he represented it with all his soul and implemented it with all his strength as its avant-garde representative, even, in my humble opinion, as its protagonist, a pioneer, a leader, a knight of the spirit without blemish and fear, certainly not as a „knight of the profession“ whom the united domestic atheists or, in a better case, believers of „God-notGod“ applaud.
Thinking, as far as I can see, within these or similar coordinates, You ask me what the state of contemporary Orthodox theology is. My humble answer is: in the same state it was a hundred years ago. This means: on the one hand, from my perspective of Orthodoxy or the Church, the return to the Fathers, the Tradition of the Church, the sources of faith and theology as its ecclesiastical interpretation is still relevant, which constitutes the „Patristic renewal“ or „neo-Patristic synthesis“, and on the other hand, there is still the challenge of scholasticism and neo-scholasticism in a broader sense, „learned“ or „scientific“ theology, completely or partially „emancipated“ from the Church. A wolf changes its fur, wisely says the people, but never its nature: once the only reliable, born in the Church and guaranteed by the Church, orthodox or Orthodox (read: authentic, unadulterated) theology today is mockingly qualified in certain, well- known ideological and para-church-sectarian environments as anachronistic, „outdated“, „retrograde“ theology, if it is even theology at all, while the only true and worthy of attention – oh how proudly that sounds! – is recognized as „scientific theology“, which, in my opinion, is not theology at all but an extremely free-spirited religious philosophy or, at best, a more or less correct religiology. In the meantime, a well-known „new Orthodox“ theological international has been created, spontaneously or, more likely, based on certain programmatic guidelines, whose branch is represented by the reformist „theological trilateral“ along the line of Fordham (USA) – Volos (Greece) – Berlin, Belgrade, and Trebinje (geographical designation unnecessary).
In short, history (as always, after all) repeats itself: in the theological world of late Byzantium on one side, we had Thomists and anti-Thomists, Philounionists and anti- Unionists, „progressists“ embodied in the figure of Vissarion of the Nicene, the latter cardinal, and, on the other, the „traditionalist“ embodied in the figure of Saint Mark of Ephesus, the Florentine union between Old and New Rome and its abolition in Constantinople in the early Ottoman era, and so on; and today we have the same or something very similar, only with different names, titles, and iconography. In the „public sphere“ appears the „post-truth“, but neither does truth, that is, Truth, retreat. Into the Church, under the guise of science, attempts to sneak in a theological (!) post-truth, called „post-patristic theology“, but – no pasaran! The presentations of the participants of the recent theological-scientific gathering in Belgrade, dedicated to Saint Justin of Ćelije, especially our young theologians, comforted me and assured me that the final word will belong to the Church, the Pillar and Fortress of truth (I Tim. 3:15), and not to the „Synagogue of Satan“ (Rev. 2:9 and 3:9); the fullness of truth, not „post-truth“, that is, lies and deception; patristically inspired Orthodox theology, not „post-patristic“ secularized quasi-theology, that is, mere „human reasoning“, and that – by a fallen, sinful, often demonized man.
Bioethical issues, from artificial insemination and surrogate motherhood, through surgical-hormonal sex change to euthanasia, besiege modern man. At one time, the publishing house of the Diocese of Bačka published a document of the Russian Orthodox Church, The Foundations of Social Concept, which, among other things, deals in detail with these issues. What can the Serbian Church convey to modern man – where do the paths of „posthumanism“ in the field of bioethics lead us? Where does blind obedience to the idea of Progress lead us?
The paths of bioethical „posthumanism“ that you succinctly yet comprehensively describe (artificial insemination, sex change, euthanasia…) are nothing but the wasteland of antihumanism. They lead humanity and the planet Earth to ruin, to death, and that is indeed the program and goal of the new, self-proclaimed „global elite“ that proclaims it shamelessly every day. It claims that there are too many human beings in the world and that humanity will simply „consume“ all resources unless it is reduced to a „golden billion“ that will be led by it, the „elite“ (and who else?). Who gives it the right to these monstrous thoughts and demonic plans, unprecedented in the history of the world so far, is, of course, wisely omitted. We Christians, however, infallibly know who that is – it is the devil, „a murderer from the beginning“ (John 8:44).
The question of where the paths of „posthumanism“ or „transhumanism“ lead us is further masterfully complemented by the following question: where does blind obedience to the idea of Progress lead us? At first glance, it seems strange and provokes a counter- question: what connection does a dangerous, frightening, extremely perverse ideology or, better said, a historical chimera of meta-historical reality, – in which there are, indeed, things, but no longer exists man, – have with the deeply humane and, one might say, purely Christian, and even monotheistic, idea of progress, advancement towards the Eschaton, towards the End as the Goal and fulfillment of the meaning of history, understood as a meaningful, logical, and providential movement from the starting point Alpha to the finishing point Omega? The answer, in my opinion, is: there is, indeed there is! For, if progress, elevated to the pedestal of Progress, we experience and understand as „principled“, „general“, „secular“, ideologically and religiously „neutral“, outside the organic ontological connection with Christ and with the Church of Christ, then it is no longer progress nor Progress but, solely and exclusively, „progress in the mill of death“, as Saint Justin of Ćelije – Justin Popović, characterized it nearly a hundred years ago in his exceptional theological-philosophical essay of the same title and fiery prophetic spirit. This wonderful and moving text seems to have been written at this very moment, at a terrible – God forbid, perhaps even fatal – turning point in world history, so I ask for your permission to, for the readers of Pečat, cite a few important insights and revelations from it.
Saint Elder Justin begins with a mournful reflection on Earth as the only „planet of death“ and on man as a tragic being, a prisoner of death. „It is tragic to be a man, – he writes, – incomparably more tragic than to be a mosquito or a snail, a bird or a snake, a lamb or a tiger,“ because man „remains a prisoner in an unopenable dungeon of death, a dungeon that has neither doors nor windows.“ And he continues, in an increasingly intense gradation: „Being born into the world, man is from the first moment a candidate for death… The womb that gives birth to us is nothing but the born sister of the grave… Death is the first gift that a mother gives to her newborn. In every human body lies hidden and concealed the most terrible and incurable disease: death.“ In this context, he quotes the righteous, much-suffering Job: „To the grave I cry: You are my father; and to the worms: You are my mother, you are my sister“ (Job 17:14). After such a diagnosis, he poses the relentless question: „Is progress possible, is it logical, is it justified, is it necessary in a world where death is the most irresistible necessity? And that question means: does this world, this life, this man have any meaning?“ And he immediately answers: „If in the mill of death the meaning of life is possible, then progress is also possible.“ Then, showing the absolute impotence of human science, philosophy, and culture, and even religion in its various historical forms, before the insatiable, all-consuming monster called death, he bitterly asks, in fact, states: „Progress? Oh, every human progress is nothing but progress towards death, progress towards the grave?“ To his own rhetorical question, he answers briefly and clearly: „Where there is death, there is no real progress.“ Real progress, it follows, exists only where – there is no death. The Risen from the dead God-Man, the Lord and Savior of the world Jesus Christ, is the Victor over death in the Event of His Resurrection and, thus, the Meaning-giver of life and the Giver of the only true progress – advancement towards life, eternal and indestructible life (cf. Heb. 7:16) in communion with the Living God, progressing „from glory to glory“ of the Kingdom of God (2 Cor. 3:18).
From this, Saint Ava draws a distinction between the humanistically (sometimes he says hoministically) formed „European“, „Western“, „modern“ man and the man of Christ, the man „in Christ“, and thus, consequently and subsequently, between the false, humanistic progress and the true, theohumanistic or God-man progress, advancement towards Christ, then in Christ and, ultimately, „to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ“ (Eph. 4:13). He illustrates his assessment and evaluation of humanistic progress with the dialogue between Alquist and Helena in Čapek’s tragedy Rossum’s Universal Robots:
„Alquist:Does Nana have any prayer book?
Jelena: There is a very large one.
Alquist: And it surely contains prayers for various situations in life? Against misfortune? Against illness?
Jelena:Yes, against temptations, against floods…
Alquist: And against progress, doesn’t it?
Jelena: I believe it doesn’t.
Alquist: Well, that’s a shame.“
Opposite this „progress“ stands, as Saint writes further, „the God-man progress from man to God-man, from death to immortality.“ According to him, opposite „scientific evolutionism“ (oh, how proud that sounds!), according to which man, at the end of all ends, is nothing more than „a passing animal among animals,“ stands Christian evolutionism – „birth in Christ, transformation in Christ, resurrection in Christ.“ In the anthropological- soteriological vision of the mystagogue of Ćelije, ultimately, for our holy local Church and for our Serbian people, the greatest teacher of the path that leads to life and through life, from birth in Christ to resurrection with Christ, has been – and forever will be – Saint Sava, „the greatest builder of God-man progress in the history of our people.“ Saint Justin
concludes: „For Saint Sava, progressis this: to gain the Lord Christ, to live in Him, by Him and for Him…“ I dare to add: behind Saint Sava we see a multitude of holy Fathers and Teachers of the Orthodox Church and His holy Apostles, and in their midst – Him Who, the Only in history, declared Himself to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life (see John 14:6), the God-man Jesus Christ.
The tragedy of the Ukrainian schism was not possible without the non-canonical interference of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the canonical territory of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, autonomous within the Moscow Patriarchate. As a hierarch who has dealt with inter-church relations in Orthodoxy for decades, what do you think – where does this tragic division lead? What is happening in the Church of the East?
Is there hope for resolving contentious issues and for peace, since, according to the Apostle Paul, Christ Himself is our Peace?
Your statement about the tragedy of the Ukrainian church schism – and, I add, the suffering of the canonical Orthodox Church and the people in Ukraine – is completely accurate. If only it were not! The tragic division there has, unfortunately, very quickly become a division in the universal Orthodoxy, and it is twofold: on one side, the division between those local Churches that do not recognize any canonical legitimacy for the Ukrainian schismatics, led by the false metropolitan, citizen Dumenko, and some other, few, local Churches that do recognize it, mostly unwillingly or under pressure, only by the decision of the primate, without the decision of the assembly of bishops, and on the other side, the division within them, somewhere in a more acute, and somewhere in a milder form, a division that, unlike the distant and recent past, has not bypassed even the centuries-old fortress of Orthodoxy, the Holy Mountain Athos. The culprits of the division, those who, despising the Councils and canons, uninvited, intruded into the canonical space of another autocephalous Church and „tore the robe of Christ,“ as if they do not know – rather, it is more likely that they know, but do not care – about the statement of Saint John Chrysostom and other great confessors of Orthodoxy that the sin of schism cannot be washed away or redeemed even by the martyr’s blood that the schismatic would shed for Christ.
There is always hope for resolving this problem, the greatest in the history of the Church since the Great Schism between the Churches of the East and West in the 11th century to the present day, and for restoring peace and unity among the local Orthodox Churches, precisely because Christ Himself, and not someone else or something else, is the Prince of Peace and Our Peace, He „Who brings both together and destroys the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, (…) to create in Himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility“ (Eph. 2:14-16). Allow me to reiterate the position I once formulated in one of our earlier Christmas conversations in the pages of Pečat: I believe that the statement of His Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch on behalf of the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople that he was misled, or rather grossly deceived, by the Ukrainian leaders of the schism and the highest representatives of the Ukrainian authorities, claiming that in Ukraine everyone or almost everyone – from the canonical Metropolitan Onufriy to the citizens Denisenko (self-proclaimed „Patriarch of Kyiv Filaret“), Dumenko (self-proclaimed „Metropolitan Epiphanius“) and Maletić (self- proclaimed „Metropolitan Makariy“) – are eagerly awaiting the „Council of Unification“ in Kyiv and the creation of the „Orthodox Church of Ukraine“ („OCU“), that ecclesiomorphic „centaur“ or „tragelaphus“ (a mythological monster that is half-goat – half-antelope), and then the annulment of that forcibly patched creation, the return to the church status quo ante and the resolution of the problem through dialogue between the unrepentant Ukrainian schismatics and their „patrons“ with the Russian Orthodox Church, that is, with the canonical Church in Ukraine, as well as dialogue at the pan-Orthodox level, would not only prevent a new schism, worse than the existing one between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches, but would also restore the former reputation and trust to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and would send Patriarch Bartholomew into history as a great and wise patriarch. Further insistence on the existing canonical disorder would, I am sure, have an immeasurable catastrophic consequence – a prolonged schism, perhaps even a new millennium of schism, this time not between the Christian East and the Christian West but within the Orthodox East, a schism that would irreparably undermine the mission and witness of Orthodoxy in the world and from which a significant ecclesiological heresy would arise. God forbid! We must pray much and earnestly and strive with all our strength to prevent this from happening.
A lot has been done since our Church began its journey to Western Europe about sixty years ago following the Serbian people who settled there. This is the time when Bishop Lavrentije Trifunović, overcoming great obstacles, began to establish church order in the Western European and Australian diaspora, founding parishes and consecrating churches.
What can you tell us about those times, what is their contribution to the current state of our Church in Europe?
Those were really hard times, „woolen times“ in every sense, times that our young generation cannot even imagine. Our Church suddenly, so to speak overnight, found itself in a situation where hundreds of thousands of its believers, its sons and daughters, woke up on distant meridians across the globe, while it itself had neither enough spiritually mature people nor material means to organize any kind of church life in that planetary scattering. Our then state, Yugoslavia, – bitterly humorously called Titoslavia, – not only ignored the Church, whether ours or the Roman Catholic or any other, not helping it in anything and hindering it in everything, also obstructed all its attempts to gather the scattered people, culminating in constant monitoring and counting of those entering the then existing few „emigrant“ churches by the „Yugoslav consulates“, with threats that passports would be revoked for those who went to churches whose previous parishioners
were former Chetniks, Ljotić’s followers, and other alleged enemies of the people. Under such conditions, Bishop Lavrentije of blessed memory practiced traveling to some large Western European or even Australian city and, in a modest cassock and kamilavka, with a modest suitcase beside him, would sit for hours at the airport or train station, hoping that among the passing travelers there would be a Serbian man or woman and that at least someone would approach him. This would happen from time to time: when someone approached him, recognizing in him an Orthodox cleric, he would introduce himself as the new bishop for Serbians in that country or on that continent and would ask the new acquaintance to introduce him to other compatriots. Soon after a meeting and conversation with a larger or smaller group of Serbian „gastarbeiters“, he would initiate a conversation about the possibility of organizing a church community, the arrival of a priest, and securing a place for worship. Little by little, with great effort and patience, Serbian believers gathered more and more around the tireless young bishop and the priests he brought, and over the decades a serious network of parishes was created, and three modest Serbian monasteries were also established, one in Europe and two in Australia.
Along with all other trials, the new diocese, territorially vast, was also troubled by schisms, mostly caused by the subversion of various „Yugoslav services“, from the visible „Religious Commission“ to the barely visible infamous UDBA. However, despite all the pains and troubles, ups and downs, the epic whose symbol was and remained the figure of Bishop Lavrentije had a happy ending – today in the area of the former Diocese of Western Europe and Australia we have six well-organized dioceses. Five of them are in Europe, and one in Australia. If we add to this number five dioceses on the soil of North and South America, we can easily conclude that approximately every fourth diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church and, correspondingly, a quarter of the Serbian people is scattered across all inhabited continents. This is our greatest „blood tax“ throughout our entire history. Compared to it, the „blood tax“ from the time of slavery under the Turks is -the most ordinary joke. In contrast to the centuries under the Ottomans, for the modern „blood tax“ we bear the greatest responsibility ourselves, all of us, and not these or those foreigners, whose „friendship“ or, politically more correctly, „partnership“ we have known from experience for centuries. How fortunate it would be that in the near and distant foreign lands – mentioning foreign lands, I consciously exclude Russia and Greece – we do not have no „diaspora“, and that all Serbians or the majority of them live either in Serbia or anywhere on the soil of their centuries-old homeland, in peace and good neighborliness with other nations and different cultures.
Can it be said that the „crown“ of that persistent long-term work in the Lord’s Vineyard in the diaspora is represented by the enthronement of kyr Nektarije, the Bishop of the newly established Diocese of London and of Great Britain and Ireland? This was recently done in London by Patriarch Porfirije, with the concelebration of several hierarchs. The new diocese has emerged from the footsteps of Saint Nikolaj
Velimirović who worked in Great Britain a hundred years ago. This significant event for the Serbian Church was celebrated by the leaders of British spiritual and secular authorities.
What does this mean for the Serbian Orthodox Church?
I could not say that it represents the „crown“, but I think it represents a significant event. Namely, we in Great Britain do not have many believers nor many parishes, but we have probably been the only local Orthodox Church that did not have a separate diocese on the soil of Great Britain. We had in our mind nothing but the real state „on the ground“, but it is hard to believe that „Perfidious Albion“ did not notice the aforementioned fact and did not interpret it in accordance with its own centuries-old „mindset“. If nothing else, from now on, the Serbian bishop in London will also be among the representatives of the Orthodox autocephalous Churches. But let us quickly return to the days when Saint Bishop Nikolaj, then a hero of British public opinion, delivered his fiery sermons in the Anglican Cathedral of Saint Paul! I think that the official British policy of that time was as indifferent to the Serbians as it is today, but that British society, still Christian at that time, was – sincerely, not seemingly – on the side of the Serbians as a Christian people fighting and suffering for freedom, justice, and truth. If we Serbians were ever to forget all those volunteer nurses and benefactors from Great Britain during the Great War, – Lady Paget, then Helen Lozanić- Frothingham and so many others, – it would be hard for us to be a civilized, let alone a Christian, nation.
During the period between the two world wars, friendly relations were nurtured between the Anglican Church and our Church. In the meantime, they have lost intensity, due to the deepening crisis of church identity of the Anglican community in Britain and in the world, as well as due to difficulties and crises in the life of our Church. However, our Church has not given up on these contacts. For its part, the Church of England, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and more recently the global Anglican community, especially since the mid-seventies of the last century, has been seeking and establishing dialogue with the Orthodox Churches, primarily dialogue on the understanding, affirmation, and promotion of the fundamental truths of Christianity, as well as fundamental Christian values and various church practices, formed and normalized throughout history. At the same time, it offers cooperation in various forms, and within its framework, it provides our Church with considerable support. It is also worth mentioning the newly established cooperation between the Theological Faculty in Oxford and the Orthodox Theological Faculty in Belgrade, the fruit of which is a theological symposium held in Oxford 2018. As can be seen, our Church today consistently and responsibly participates in the theological dialogue with the Church of England and with the Anglican community as a whole, aware that within it, alongside the loud ultra-liberal secularist current, there exists a quiet, yet spiritually stable conservative-traditionalist current, likely the majority. All in all, the existence of the Serbian diocese and the presence of the Serbian bishop in London, along with all that has been mentioned, will help the Serbian people as a historical collective subject, traditionally exposed to prejudices, stereotypes, and injustices of the Anglo-Saxon world.
The official representative of our Church in the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue, which recently marked the fiftieth anniversary of its existence (1973 – 2023), is Professor Bogdan Lubardić from the Orthodox Theological Faculty in Belgrade. He has held several very significant positions in that Commission, and since he has been a member for fifteen years on behalf and with the blessing of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and since each of his reports to the Holy Synod is a comprehensive theological study on the essential course of the dialogue, on Orthodox witnessing within it and its contribution, I would like to take this opportunity to publicly invite him to publish a book on that dialogue as soon as possible, both in Serbian and in English (but exclusively in his own translation into English, which will not be a translation but one of the two originals, equally authentic and valuable).
The evangelical light has also manifested itself in another place in Western Europe. A month ago, the Royal Library ‘Black Diamond’ in Copenhagen, Denmark, digitized the Miroslav Gospel. How did you receive this news?
With pleasure and joy, of course. I am convinced that the digital copy of the Miroslav Gospel, as a true light of faith, beauty, and culture, will greatly dispel the fog of stereotypes about the ‘Balkans’ and ‘Balkan people’ (Turkish names imposed by German historians since the 18th century!), especially about us Serbians, who are otherwise – some with suspicion, others with disdain, and others with mockery – considered and called ‘little Russians’ by many in Denmark and all of Western Europe, not realizing that in doing so they promote ‘great Russians’ and Russia as a great empire and civilization, while at the same time forgetting that the ‘Balkans’, specifically the Greek ethnic and cultural space, is the original Europe and the cradle of ‘Europeanism’. What a mystical horror: the Balkans – the mother of Europe (even the word Europe is Greek, thus incurably Balkan!), and the ‘Byzantine Commonwealth’ and ‘Russian world’ – more European than the entirety of ‘Frankish Europe’, with itsformer center in Aachen of Charlemagne, and today with its center in Brussels!
This is an opportunity – and my spiritual need – to mention my dear friend, brother, and concelebrant in Christ, Father Voja Bilbija, a long-time Serbian parish priest in Rotterdam, and thus, by extension, the spiritual advisor to Serbian prisoners in The Hague and other Hague prisons. Father Voja is not only a good doctor nor just a conscientious Serbian Orthodox priest but also a good, rather excellent, artist. Among other things, he created, with the blessing of the relevant church authority, a silver sarcophagus for the relics of Saint Simeon the Myrrhgusher (Stefan Nemanja). Before sending it to the Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos, he exhibited it in Rotterdam for a while. During that period, someone asked him: „How come you Serbians had dynasties as early as the 12th century?“ To that question, Father Bilbija, as steadfast as a rock in Dalmatia, the homeland of his –and my – ancestors, replied: „You first descended from the branches of trees, and then had dynasties; we Serbians had dynasties even before we descended from the branches of trees.“ Aferim, my friend! Better said: aferim, brother Voja !
Complex and well-founded motives lead us to now repeat part of your response to a question we posed to you back in 2012, regarding the then-current media storm – the publication of the allegedly „secret letter of the SOC“ addressed to the highest state „officials.“ You denied the malicious media claims about the alleged „Memorandum of the SOC on Kosovo,“ but you also said this: „The Synod is convinced that it articulates not only its own position but also the position of the majority of Orthodox believers of Serbian nationality and our fellow citizens of
other faiths and non-Serbian affiliation when it has been stating for years that we have no right to cede Kosovo and Metohija to those who have seized it by force, more by others than by their own, and that no one has the right to barter that land, consecrated by our greatest holy places and soaked in martyr’s blood, for bare promises that negotiations about the dizzying heights of our uncertain, but therefore, my God, undoubtedly bright future in the European earthly paradise will begin sooner or later.“
Would you add any word here today or change any message in this statement?
No.
In the Christmas message that Patriarch Porfirije will soon address to the faithful in the name of the Church, together with the entire hierarchy of our holy Church, alongside his name, the names and titles of all bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church will also be listed. On this occasion, for the first time, according to a decision made at the last May session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops, alongside the names of
the majority of hierarchs, their new titles will be listed. At that time, a decision was made to elevate eighteen Dioceses to the rank of Metropolitanates, and their bishops to archbishops and metropolitans. The Church public is still getting used to these changes and new titles. Many are unclear about what „key“ was used to determine whether some of those bishops would become metropolitans or archbishops, and
their Dioceses Metropolitanates and Archdioceses.
Could you explain that to us?
Before answering the essence of your questions, I suggest a small correction in its formulation. Our public has overlooked the fact – that is why you did not notice it either – that the Holy Assembly of Bishops at its last session changed only the titles of a number of diocesan hierarchs while the status of the Dioceses themselves has remained unchanged. Consequently, in the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church, there are only canonically equal Dioceses: there are neither Archdioceses nor Metropolitanates except for one, the Archdiocese Belgrade-Karlovci, with the fact that the bishops of certain Dioceses have the title of archbishop and metropolitan, – a title that is solely and exclusively of an honorary character, without suffragan or dependent bishops, thus without jurisdictional prestige or any special authority (for this case, the Germans have a humorous expression Titel ohne Mittel, which would mean „title without accompanying means“), – and the bishops of other Dioceses can also, over time, as a personal recognition for long-standing dedicated and conscientious service to God, the Church, and the Nation, receive the same title. Therefore, if any bishop were to conclude based on such factual circumstances that he – as an individual, and not as a „fairy“ who found herself „in what she was not“ – has in a certain way received a rank that is above the rank of other, „ordinary“, bishops, then he is, according to „oikonomia“, according to „condescension“, deserving of every regret, and according to „akribeia“, according to the strict application of canonical principles, deserving of every condemnation. Ultimately, according to the Lord Christ and His holy Gospel, whoever wishes to be first, and not last, will truly be last (see Matt. 19:30 and 20:16; Mark 10:31 and 35-45; Luke 13:30). In this categorization of „primacy“ and accompanying excessive titles that in their excess acquire a blasphemous resonance, where it is teeming with „most holy“, „most blessed“, and „most divine“, no title realistically means anything, absolutely nothing, while the absence of any positive epithet or the presence of some extremely negative attribute next to someone’s name does not at all have to mean that the same, measured by ontological and axiological standards, is not – or cannot be – first before the First and Last, before Christ the Lord. You feel what I am saying with your inner spiritual sense and therefore you ask me by what „key“ it was determined which of the bishops will be archbishop or metropolitan. For, you know in advance that it is not about pleasing unhealthy vanities, whether elderly or youthful, and this in a time of unprecedented tragedies and apocalyptic horrors both in the world and on our domestic scene.
In short, I will list some of the elements of the „key“, i.e. the motives and reasons for such a decision of the Assembly, while I note in advance that it – like, in fact, any other – is most attacked from the position of the all-knowing by those who have no connection with our Church and with Orthodoxy except for nurturing an irrational feeling of frenzied intolerance towards them. These people, unaware that they know nothing about Orthodoxy as such, and about the Serbian Orthodox Church in particular, or, at best, know a few superficial clichés and worn-out stereotypes, find unexpected allies among certain representatives of our own, Orthodox and Serbian, „sixth column“, as this category of our intellectuals was humorously named by Dragoslav Bokan. They are, in fact, usually neither blasphemers of the Church nor haters of Serbdom like those from the „fifth column“ – most of them are, on the contrary, both Orthodox believers and Serbian patriots – but they are so enchanted by the self-awareness of their superiority in the field of science, or art, or literature, or…, or…, that they do not realize that they, no matter from which pedestal they speak, cannot be teachers of the Church, let alone judges or adjudicators of its hierarchy, nor defenders of the church order of the Church itself, and especially do not understand that the truth of being, order, and mission of the Church does not depend on the number of pages read but on the enlightening grace of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth Who leads us into all truth (John 16:13). There is, of course, a transitional layer between these „columns“ – these are the declarative followers of Saint Sava. „You rejoice – writes the sober-minded Slavko Gordić about the Liturgy in a Novi Sad church, in his diary notes in the November issue of ‘The Chronicle of the Matica Srpska’ – at the increasing presence of young believers, not surprised, for some time now, by the absolute absence of members of the so-called elite, political, scientific, and cultural.“ This does not prevent the „elites“ from striving to save the Church with themselves, rather than saving themselves through the Church. Likewise, individuals do not hesitate or feel ashamed to write in well- known shameless Belgrade tabloids that „the Serbian Church is silent about Kosovo and Metohija“ (o tempora, o mores!), and others that, it seems, the same Church does not light enough candles on the street for the victims of the recent Novi Sad tragedy – for them, it is evident that a candle in the church has no significance, and prayerful memorials, funeral Liturgies, and all-night vigils, the permanent remembrance in all churches in the Diocese of Bačka, and not only in it, are all unknown to them, a true terra incognita.
But, let us return to the topic! Eternal categories, among others, in the Church and for the Church, are the sacred orders of bishops, presbyters, and deacons, as well as the community of believers or the People of God. Titles, honorary offices, decorations, and the like – all of this is historically conditioned, changeable, of relative importance, a matter of administrative nomenclature. Ontologically and axiologically, essentially and valuably, there is no difference between a bishop and an archbishop, a bishop and a metropolitan, a bishop and an exarch, a bishop and a patriarch – they are all bishops, differently arranged in a historically shaped complex system of canonical jurisdictions and obediences. The same applies to other hierarchical offices: a priest (presbyter, commonly known as pop, or popa, which, like the word pope, means father) and an honored priest (protopresbyter, commonly known as protopop or prota) are, in service and grace, one and the same, just as a deacon (commonly known as djak, ser. „priest to the deacon, and deacon to the ecclesiarch“) and an honored deacon (proto-deacon, hierodeacon, or deacon from the ranks of monasticism and archdeacon as a monastic „counterpart“ to the proto-deacon) are, in service and grace, one and the same. In relation to the titles of bishops, both „ordinary“ and, no less superficially, „honored“ or „privileged“, it is necessary to seriously consider the unprecedented historical turn or reversal in the relations between the Roman Empire and the young Christian Church, still formally a minority religious community: Constantine the Great abolished its status as a prohibited anti-state cult (collegium illicitum), and his successor Theodosius the Great granted it, no less and no more, the status of an official state or imperial cult, as a result of which the most prominent Christian bishop, the bishop of the capital Rome, officially inherits the title pontifex maximus, until then the title of the high priest of the pagan, anti-Christian state cult, which the Roman bishop, unfortunately, still bears today. In this historical context, at the time of the fateful historical turn and reversal of the Roman Empire towards a universal – at least by guiding idea – Christian Empire, there were also attempts to coordinate or mutually align the „ecclesiastical“ and „civil“ boundaries of the great administrative units. As a result of this process, the borders of state or, strictly speaking, imperial provinces (of provinces), later also dioceses, the largest administrative units, are gradually, more or less, equalized on one side, and the borders of ecclesiastical provinces or ecclesiastical areas, later ecclesiastical dioceses, on the other side (I note that in Greek the word ‘eparchy’ has, until today, a secular administrative meaning – province or region – and not the meaning of a strictly ecclesiastical administrative unit, bishopric or metropolitanate).
In the first half of the 4th century AD, after the Church, following the era of persecutions, gained freedom, and then the status of a state religion (how I wish it had never received this last one!), the conciliar system of church governance and resolution of church issues developed without hindrance. By the nature of things, regional (provincial, ‘eparchial’) councils were convened and presided over by the bishop of the metropolis (μητρóπολις/митρóπολις), the capital of the region or province. Therefore, he received the official title of ‘bishop of the metropolis’ or ‘first bishop of the eparchy/province’ (let’s note: always a bishop!), but it soon evolved, in shortened colloquial use, into the title of bishop-metropolitan, then just metropolitan, although the word metropolitan, generally speaking, means ‘citizen of the metropolis’, by analogy with pόlis (city) and politis (citizen). Thus, in the 4th century, alongside the consecrated biblical term bishop, the political or civil term metropolitan also appeared, which, unfortunately, in the Greek- speaking Churches has overshadowed, and in some cases displaced, the term bishop, ‘thanks’ to the great architect of modern Phanar, Meletios Metaxakis, the patriarch who flew to Istanbul on Truman’s plane and immediately, at the airport, acquired citizenship of the newly born Kemal Pasha’s Turkey. Before the title of metropolitan, there also appeared an honorary, purely intra-church title of archbishop, of course not in the sense of some ‘super-bishop’, ‘over-bishop’, but in the sense of the first in honor and prestige of the bishop of a certain ecclesiastical area. In that original sense, the title of archbishop still exists today in some local Orthodox Churches (Jerusalem and Moscow Patriarchates and some other Churches, including ours from this year), and it persists in combination with the title of metropolitan. The heads of our former Metropolitanate of Karlovci, a canonically well-ordered Church, carried, for example, the title of archbishop and metropolitan of Karlovci, later, from 1848, with the addition ‘and Serbian Patriarch’. This tradition is steadfastly preserved even today: the first bishop of our Church, its primate (predstojatelj) – the popular term poglavar (also, head) is more understandable than the archaic term predstojatelj, but from a canonical standpoint, it is not the most fortunate – bears the title ‘Archbishop of Peć, Metropolitan of Belgrade-Karlovci and Serbian Patriarch’. In short, every metropolitan is, in advance, an archbishop, but not every archbishop is automatically a metropolitan. Concurrently, we have a newer practice in which the head of an autocephalous Church is called an archbishop and where the title of archbishop is above the title of metropolitan. These practices are upheld by the Greek- speaking Churches.
I have already mentioned to you the presumptuous know-it-alls in our society whose comments, critiques, attacks, and outbursts insinuate that the Assembly’s decision on the ‘new titles’ of bishops represents an unprecedented and unfounded novelty, a novelty introduced out of vanity and human pleasing, not out of church necessity and for some, even minor, benefit for the mission of the Church. Therefore, it is, you see, their inviolable right to give a ‘lesson’ to the know-nothing, in their belief, Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church… However, the anonymous know-it-alls do not suspect that the Assembly has returned things to their previous state (‘in another form’, of course), and that the previous state lasting for a century, from the 1920s of the last century to the 2020s of this century, was a historical intermezzo, conditioned, in my humble opinion, by naive enthusiasm for the then newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenians, the chimera of ‘integral Yugoslavism’ (‘one three-named nation’) and the utopian illusion of the ‘end of history’. Our then elite, not excluding the ecclesiastic one, with rare exceptions, seemed to believe that Yugoslavia would exist as long as the world exists. Everything was reformed and transformed in order to serve the set goal at all costs – the unity of the state. In the field of organizing church structures in the united Patriarchate, composed of several previous provincial Churches, a Yugoslav foundation was also tacitly implied, along with some kind of ‘Gleichschaltung’ or ‘equilibrium’ in relation to fellow citizens of different confession, primarily Roman Catholic Croats, and to non-Christian compatriots, primarily Muslims. For the majority of bishops who entered unity in the rank of metropolitan, that rank was quickly abolished, no bishop from ethnically pure Serbian areas received that rank, but Zagreb quickly and urgently, for the first time in its history, received an Orthodox metropolitan (namely, a bishop of a higher ‘rank’ than the then Roman Catholic archbishop of Zagreb). Our Holy Assembly of Bishops did not, of course, question that historically established title of the Orthodox bishop of the city of Zagreb and its wider surroundings, – today in a different context, in the context of the bishop of the capital of a neighboring country, – but it could not retain for him a new or recently acquired title without returning that same title to the hierarchs whose predecessors had held it centuries before him. Since I am mentioning Serbian metropolitans of ‘long duration’, abolished upon the establishment of the ‘Kingdom of SHS’, I wonder: why not restore them after the disappearance of the first, second, third, and any subsequent Yugoslavia? Moreover, this should not be done in a political ‘key’, in the context of pro-Yugoslavism or anti-Yugoslavism, but exclusively for church motives and reasons, for the advancement of the Church’s centuries-old mission, which is nothing but a path to salvation, to eternal life, to the Kingdom of Heaven.
In historical perspective, we are one of the few contemporary local Orthodox Churches that can invoke the fact that it is attested in the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament. Of course, we did not exist in the immediate New Testament era, but a significant part of the Church from that era is today an organic and inalienable part of our local Church. In the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, for example, it is stated that the holy apostle Titus, a disciple of the holy apostle Paul, one of the Apostles of the Seventy (see II Tim. 4:10), worked in Dalmatia, which means that our Church, on this basis, is an apostolic Church and that it was not ‘created’ just by Sava Nemanjić, our Serbian Saint Sava, after about eleven centuries. He secured for it the status of autocephaly, the highest possible independence within the unique family of the Orthodox Churches, but it existed in the area where for many centuries, either as a compact population or in community with other peoples, Orthodox Serbians have lived. It is not just Dalmatia nor just Illyricum, which the holy apostle Paul „in the power of signs and wonders, in the power of the Spirit of God, (…) filled with the Gospel of Christ“ (Romans 15:19). These are all Roman provinces, such as Moesia, Pannonia, Dardania, Macedonia, and others, which today make up the ethnic and cultural space of the Serbian people, compact or mixed with neighboring peoples. If Croats as Roman Catholics consider themselves the heirs of that apostolic, proto-Christian heritage and on the soil of Dalmatia, for example, have several bishops, of which two are metropolitans, and not just titular ones, then why do we not have at least one metropolitan, a titular one, on the soil of Orthodox Dalmatia (Nikodim Milaš), as all our metropolitans? One more example: ancient Sirmium, one of the four capitals of the Roman Empire in the 4th century, is today Sremska Mitrovica, a predominantly Serbian city in Serbia; in that ancient Roman era, the Church in Sirmium was led by metropolitans; they even participated in the First Ecumenical Council and in subsequent ecumenical councils. After many centuries, in completely new historical circumstances, the Orthodox heir of the ancient Metropolitanate of Sirmium was the Metropolitanate of Karlovci led by a metropolitan, later the Serbian patriarch. Do we have the right to forget or neglect that history and to see the beginnings of the Diocese of Srem in our Church only in the 20th century? Should we silently accept that Sirmium, alias Sremska Mitrovica, is the historical See of only the Roman Catholic bishop, and not, at least as much (in my opinion and more), the See of the Orthodox metropolitan, the canonical heir of the prominent predecessors from the first centuries? Furthermore: the dioceses that Saint Sava had already found on Serbian soil, of Raška and of Prizren, were led by the metropolitans. And in the following centuries, during the centuries of Turkish rule in Serbia and the rule of Phanariot bishops in the Serbian Church, they held the title of metropolitans. This was also the case in other our regions under the Turks – in Old and Southern Serbia, in Bosnia and elsewhere. However, all of them, in the united Serbian Patriarchate, in 1922, remained in the rank of bishops, but Zagreb received a Serbian bishop in the rank of metropolitan. I could list a number of examples, but I think this is enough. The conclusion is clear: for historiographical and historiosophic reasons, it was necessary to preserve the title of metropolitan, in itself, otherwise, not only harmless but also constructive.
Independent, however, of history and its „implications“ (as one would say in modern Anglo-Serbian), in harmony with the very meaning of the terms metropolis, metropolitanate, and metropolitan, there was no logic in the fact that the least dioceses,further decimated as a result of wars and „ethnic cleansing“ in the former Yugoslavia, have metropolitans at their head, while the realistically existing large and relatively large dioceses – such as Niš, Šumadija, Žiča, Banja Luka, Bačka, and others – have bishops at their head. If we are to be honest, now in each of our „regional metropolises“ there is a bishop who is called a metropolitan. We have avoided the senseless trap of having all diocesan hierarchs called metropolitans, as happened, thanks to the aforementioned Meletios Metaxakis, in brotherly Greece, where both the bishop of Thessaloniki, with more than a million residents and the bishop of some island with three or four thousand permanent residents equally – metropolitans. (To avoid injustice: this virus metropolitanum has partially infected some other local sister Churches as well.) But we have quite enough diocesan hierarchs with the title of metropolitan to prevent or render any incorrect interpretation of the phrase archbishop and metropolitan meaningless. All in all, the Assembly, for historical reasons, also took into account the need to respect the canonical principle of a more balanced correlation between the realistically significant centers of state-civil and church life. By restoring some old metropolitan titles and introducing some new ones, the status of our bishops in the diaspora has also been balanced to a considerable extent. In some Western countries, we have a large church diaspora, until recently led by a bishop, while other local Churches, with a significantly smaller diaspora, some even ten times smaller, have dioceses led by an archbishop or metropolitan, which has sometimes put our local hierarchs in an awkward position when jointly addressing various issues in the field of inter-Orthodox cooperation and cooperation with non-Orthodox Churches and confessions, as well as cooperation with state authorities and public institutions of various profiles. Moreover, in extreme cases, there would be scenes of black humor: a young metropolitan, say, from some jurisdiction with many hierarchs and little flock (I say this without a trace of malice, on the contrary), and himself with little flock, perhaps even titular, without a flock, addresses an already gray Serbian bishop in the diaspora, whose flock numbers in the hundreds of thousands, with the title for vicar bishops, since he does not know from experience that a bishop is not synonymous with a vicar, and a metropolitan with a diocesan hierarch, and if he knows from somewhere what a bishop means in the Church, he can pretend to be a little clumsy… For now, this is enough, and since the topic is quite unknown, I will return to it, God willing, with a separate authorial text.
Is there such a titular, such an example, in any other Orthodox Church?
In all of them, as I demonstrated in response to the previous question.
During the past year, we heard good news from the Archdiocese of Ohrid and Macedonia. On the eve of the Feast of the Nativity of the Most-Holy Theotokos, 20th September, a copy of the Icon of the Theotokos “Of the Three Hands” arrived in Skopje from Hilandar, accompanied by the Hegumen of Hilandar, Archimandrite Methodije, and several other Hilandar monks. The icon was welcomed by His Beatitude Archbishop of Ohrid and Macedonia Stefan with the clergy and numerous people. The icon of the Theotokos “Of the Three Hands” is associated with almost the entire Serbian Christian history, starting from Saint Sava.
How significant is this event?
Every communion – and first and foremost liturgical and sacramental – among the Churches of God and among us, members of the Church, One in essence, yet
jurisdictionally inseparably divided into many local or regional Churches, is a significant event. This is especially true for our gathering around great sacral objects, as was the gathering around the copy of the miraculous Hilandar icon of the Most Holy Theotokos “Of the Three-hands” in Skopje. Such a prayerful gathering in the same faith, hope, and love is our most urgent spiritual need, especially in our days when the forces of evil increasingly attack the unity and oneness of the Orthodox Church of Christ, the Sole Holy.
There are other events that deserve to be remembered. The Serbian Patriarch Porfirije and the Metropolitan of Prespa and Pelagonia, Petar, accompanied by a larger number of bishops, arrived in Niš on Sunday, 13th October, where they were welcomed by the Metropolitan of Niš, Arsenije. Liturgies were held in the Cathedral church of the Descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles in Niš and in the Đunis Monastery. This event warmed the hearts of many believers.
What could you say about such joint Liturgies?
The same as I said in response to the previous question. Indeed, the Holy Liturgy is the Lord’s Table, and the Holy Communion is our daily Bread.
When it comes to the events that particularly marked the past year, let us also mention the visit to Serbia by Pietro Cardinal Parolin, the second man of the Vatican. The visit was organized to commemorate the centenary of the Archdiocese of Belgrade. There were various, restrained comments about this significant visit, which was officially assessed as „a confirmation of the friendly and close relationship
between the Holy See and our state.“ Can we also say that it is a confirmation that the awareness of the crisis of Christianity is omnipresent and such is also the state in the environment from which the high guest comes? How do you assess this event?
I will start with your last question. The visit of Cardinal Parolin – a precious man to us, not only or not so much because of his high rank in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Vatican state but primarily because of his personal spiritual qualities – is not only „a confirmation of the friendly and close relationship between the Holy See and our state“ but also a confirmation of the friendly and close relationship between the Roman Catholic Church, embodied in Pope Francis, Cardinal Parolin, and other figures, and our Serbian Orthodox Church, both regarding the status of Old Serbia (Kosovo and Metohija, once Dardania, but never Kurti’s false, invented, „Albanian“ Dardania) and regarding the utmost caution in the attempt to canonize the controversial, for me personally and obscure, Cardinal Stepinac, as well as otherwise, in the context of shared Christian responsibility in the face of the challenges of a post-Christian, and now unfortunately, also anti-Christian, civilizational milieu.
Now I return to your previous question. The crisis of Christianity and the awareness of that crisis certainly exist „in the environment from which the high guest comes,“ Cardinal Parolin, but, to the same or very similar extent, they also exist in our environment, Serbian Orthodox and universally Orthodox. I wonder and ask: is it more purposeful (the late Patriarch Pavle of blessed memory would say „more advisable and instructive“) to react to such a crisis in the spirit of the folk saying „Everyone on their own path!“ or to react collectively, in the spirit, conditionally speaking, of the now possible elementary conciliarity? My answer is: to react collectively! Until further notice, of course, we cannot formulate a common position on dogmatic issues (the addition of Filioque in the Nicene Creed, papal infallibility or indefectibility, etc.), but on the mentioned or similar issues – we can and must.
At the recent Belgrade Book Fair, as every year, publishers of the Serbian Orthodox Church were grouped in one place in one exhibition hall. There, the dioceses and individual monasteries, including the „Beseda“ from the Diocese of Bačka, presented their publications, which, as in previous years, were, as is the general belief, exceptionally notable. The books displayed at these stands featured interesting titles and content, graphic cover designs, and engaging illustrations. Do you share this belief of ours?
I do.
Last year, in a conversation with you published in Pečat, we discussed the unresolved status of religious education and religious teachers in our schooling. Has anything
changed for the better?
Everything has, thank God, changed for the better, primarily thanks to God, and then to Prime Minister Vučević and his Government, with full understanding from the President of Serbia. The theories – even fables and fairy tales – of individuals and groups from the Ministry of Education that there is no legitimate and legal way to resolve the status of religious education as a subject and religious teachers as educational workers, all in the name of „values“ and „rules“ of the European Union, which is a ruthless lie not of the Ministry of Education but of the unrepentant „comrades“ within it, are proving to be mere hearsay. The publication of this interview in the Christmas and New Year issue of Pečat coincides, thank God, with the conclusion of the public debate on the status of religious education and religious teachers.
Finally, to you personally, to the editorial staff, collaborators, readers, and friends of our Pečat, to all our brothers and sisters of the Orthodox Christian faith, especially to all who suffer and who are endangered and persecuted around the world, as well as to all – Orthodox who adhere to the so-called new calendar, Roman Catholics, and Christians of the Reformation, who have already celebrated Christmas – I sincerely congratulate you on the joyful feast of Christ’s Nativity and the New Year of the Lord’s goodness, with a joyful Christmas greeting:
Peace of God, – irínin, pacem, shalom, selam, – Christ is born!
* Published in Pečat No. 840, 27th December 2024, pages 3 and 6 – 21, under the title
„The people who overcome difficulties and for whom the sun always rises – that is us
Serbians.“
Source: Diocese of Bačka
Translated by:
Tamara Vojvodić
Nikola Mutavdžić
