By Nikola Maric
I would like nothing better than to write a nice, positive and supportive article about our Church, an institution which saved the Orthodoxy as well as Serbdom from disappearing from the face of the Earth. I would like to write about a nice Serbian gathering at such and such Serbian Orthodox Church here in America, or, better yet, our churches in the homeland. But that would be like sticking my nose in the sand pretending that everything is just dandy. It is not dandy, far from it. I am afraid to tune in to one of our Serbian media programs and publications any more.
I am not sure we are not heading for another turmoil in our long suffering Serbian Orthodox Church. The dust has hardly settled since we, supposedly, settled our differences which split our believers in two warring factions created by Tito 1963. Serbs from both camps are now visiting each other functions, even liturgies, only kiddingly do we call each other federalists or schismatics, not to insult but to let us know that we can now talk about the sad past without being afraid to start a new war, and new clouds are gathering in the sky, new uncertainties making it diffi cult to concentrate on fasting, church going and minding our own business. I am sad to say that things do not look much better than just before the infamous split in the last century.
No, patriarch Irinei did not send a team of bishops to depose any of our bishops here in America. No, they do not mind if our priests mention the name of Draza Mihailovic in Serbian churches. Instead, something worse is happening to us, this time not here but in Serbia. I do not have all the facts about the activities of bishop Artemije. I do not know why he had to be dismissed as the Raska- Prizren administrator. However, I do know that bishop Artemije is the personifi cation of Serbian suffering in Kosovo. In my estimation the new patriarch could not have found worse time to curtail bishop Artemije’s activities in Kosovo.
Bishop Vasilije may be a fi ne man, I do not know much about him, but he can not fi ll the shoes of his predecessor. Bishop Artemije is already a martyr in the eyes of many thousands of Serbs in Serbia as well as here in diaspora. As for our own problems here, created by the so called “arondatsia”, I have a word of advice for our bishops here. LEAVE OUR PEOPLE ALONE!
I know of no church-school congregation, no single administrator or board member who took one cent of the Church property and deposited it in his or her own account. Churches prosper and grow, people attend services, organize functions and promote Serbian Faith and Serbian heritage. At the same time they pay their priests decent salaries, fulfi ll their orthodox duties- and mind their own business. Let us not fi x what is not broken. Tell us what you need for your administrative expenditures, give us able servants of God, priests that is, and let us do the rest. And if we choose to protect our church properties through existing and legal American laws, that should not be a threat to anybody who has the best interests of our Church in mind.
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