NEWS FEATURE: Serb church, fearing persecution in Kosovo, turns political

c. 1999 Religion News Service BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Faced with some of the worst persecution in its history, the Serbian Orthodox Church has lashed out at Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and taken measures to halt what it fears is a wave of destruction of holy sites in Kosovo. The 6.5-million member church’s ruling Holy Synod […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia _ Faced with some of the worst persecution in its history, the Serbian Orthodox Church has lashed out at Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and taken measures to halt what it fears is a wave of destruction of holy sites in Kosovo.

The 6.5-million member church’s ruling Holy Synod for the first time last week called for the Yugoslav president’s resignation. Previously, as early as 1992, only individual church leaders had criticized Milosevic, a former member of the Communist Party which had violently suppressed the church.


The five-member Holy Synod, headed by Patriarch Pavle I, also urged Serbs living in Kosovo to stay put as tens of thousands of Kosovo Albanians return from refugee camps.

Then, in a powerful symbolic gesture of solidarity with Kosovo’s remaining Serbs, the 83-year-old patriarch departed June 17 for Kosovo, where in the past week a Serbian Orthodox priest was murdered, a monk was kidnapped and at least two monasteries were burned.”It wasn’t even like this under the Turks. They didn’t burn churches and monasteries,”said church spokesman Deacon Luka Novakovic, referring to the 500 years Serbia was under Turkish control.

Pavle, who served as Kosovo’s bishop for 34 years, will take up residence in the ancient patriarchal seat of Pec for an open-ended period and travel around the embattled province, where NATO soldiers have been unable to thwart KLA attacks on holy sites, clergy or Serb civilians.

While Serbs do not attend church in large numbers, the 6.5-million member Serbian Orthodox Church has a moral authority both for standing up to communist regimes and as the faithful repository of much Serb culture and tradition. More recently, during the mass pro-democracy protests of 1997, Pavle I and other church leaders took part in student marches through the streets of Belgrade.

The wiry, diminutive patriarch, an author and theologian who has criticized the violence of both Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, is often described as a”holy man”for his humility, his denunciations of nationalism and for eschewing the pomp and luxury in which the leaders of some Orthodox churches indulge.

For all his popularity and for all the respect the church enjoys, however, there is no indication the Serbian public is looking for the church to play a role in Yugoslav politics. The two political parties with explicitly Christian-based platforms are relatively obscure and hold no seats in the Yugoslav parliament. There are no national Islamic parties in Yugoslavia, which has a 10 percent Muslim minority.

The Christian Democratic Party, founded in 1997 and headed by a prominent Belgrade lawyer, considers itself part of the democratic opposition. Its leaders hope to take advantage of the public’s discontent with the situation in Kosovo and pick up the party’s first parliamentary seats in the next election, which could come as early as this fall.


In a recent interview in the organization’s new headquarters in Belgrade, party vice president Milorad Savicevic said the Christian Democrats have a Christian-based platform but was fuzzy on some questions that might be important for believers.

Abortion, for example, was an issue the Christian Democrats did not have a position on.”It is a real question, but it is too early. We haven’t decided yet,”said Savicevic, offering his own opinion instead.”It should be easy (to get an abortion). There should not be too many obstacles.” Like the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Christian Democrats support religious education in schools but Savicevic said the party had yet to work out how minority faiths’ and nonbelievers’ needs would be accommodated.

In principle, Savicevic said, if the Christian Democrats can win just one seat in Yugoslavia’s federal parliament, the party may gain all-important financing from the powerful Christian Democratic parties in other European countries like Germany.

The other political group with a religious agenda, the Serbian St. Sava Party founded in 1990, has a much more defined platform but is also located even farther from power. Issues like abortion were worked out a long time ago, said the Rev. Zarko Gavrilovic, the president and founder.”It is a bigger sin than killing an adult person,”said Gavrilovic, a retired, Oxford-educated Orthodox priest who believes abortion should be illegal absent a compelling medical reason.

The St. Sava Party is named after the much revered 13th-century monk who some less-educated Serbs believe is a member of the Holy Trinity. Gavrilovic is vehemently anti-communist and, like the Christian Democrats, supports the return of a monarchy to Yugoslavia.

As happened with the return of the Spanish monarchy, the enthronement of crown prince Alexander Karadjordjevic, a middle-aged London businessman, would give Yugoslavia a chance at stability, Gavrilovic said.”If there is no head of a household, then the thieves will come,”said Gavrilovic of Yugoslavia in reference to the current regime.”Slobodan Milosevic must go and after him everything will change. There will be more freedom and a possibility to work and to live honestly.” Within the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose Holy Synod before this week had never called for the ouster of a specific party, the return of the monarchy is a favorite, if somewhat hopeless, cause.


For one thing the crown prince, who as king would be known as Alexander II, has a hard time with the national language. In his first visit in 1991, he addressed his potential subjects in English not Serbian.

Since that first Belgrade appearance, Alexander”has learned a lot of Serbian,”said Petar Milenkovic, an official with the Serb Renewal Party. Milenkovic said he is in contact with Alexander about once a month on average. The Serb Renewal Party, which has the restoration of the monarchy as part of its platform, is the one political organization with real power that seems to enjoy the most sympathizers among Serbian Orthodox Church clergy.

Milenkovic, an icon painter who was once an altar boy to the late Patriarch German, fully supports any financial aid his party can offer the church. Recently, the party paid for the construction of a church in a small town north of Belgrade, said Milenkovic, a Belgrade city council member.

In Belgrade itself, where the Serb Renewal Party controls the local government, church officials say they are pleased with the city’s financial help in a church building and restoration campaign.

Headed by the main democratic opposition leader, Vuk Draskovic, the Serb Renewal Party could soon be poised to do much more for the church if new national elections are called. Draskovic served as a deputy prime minister in Milosevic’s government for several months before stepping down during NATO’s bombing campaign.

Whatever happens on Yugoslavia’s volatile political scene, it is unlikely the Holy Synod will step into the fray again soon. For example, Novakovic, the church spokesman, said the church would be loathe to ever endorse a presidential candidate.


The church”was forced to”call for Milosevic’s resignation, Novakovic said, because of the desperate straits of the Serb people. He added,”It is not the wish of the church to be involved in politics.”DEA END BROWN

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