Patriarch Irinej calls Kosovo
Patriarch Irinej calls Kosovo partition unacceptable, then jumps on the Pope’s bandwagon
The Serbian Patriarch Irinej said the partition of Kosovo is
both unacceptable and
unachievable. He also said that the situation in the province
is very difficult and added
that he cannot imagine the Peć patriarchy not being a part
of Serbia, but a part of
another country, adding that this too would be unacceptable.
“Serbia is not Serbia without Kosovo. For me it is a being
without a head. Our country
cannot be beheaded and stripped of Kosovo. I hope that
enough reason and wisdom
will be found by us and the world,” he said.
Regarding dialogue with officials of the Catholic Church and the Pope,
Irinej said that
such talks are important, adding that the Serbian Orthodox Church
(SPC) is not running
from such talks, because discussions can help overcome divisions
that exist in the
Christian church.
“The Pope has great power in the world, so why not talk about our problems
and the problems of others with
such a person? We must try to stop the divisions and start turning towards
united values,” Patriarch Irinej said
Patriarch Irinej’s attitude is typical of Serbian Orthodoxy, which one bishop of theirs described as different from regular Orthodoxy by being “Orthodoxy, ENNOBLED [my emphasis] by a vigorous nationalism.” As if Orthodoxy needs ennobling by anything. And no one called him on it.
The fact is, Serbian Orthodoxy is like God-is-a-Republican evangleical protestantism. (not in doctrine in all points obviously, but in a lot of the essence of it.) Been there, done that, repented of it, and I know it when I see it in action anywhere.
I have strongly suspected that the Serbian churches are infected with not just fleshly but demonic influence. “st.” Nikolai Velimirovic admitted this, without realizing the implications of what he was saying, when he said “On this lake of Ochrida was a beautiful church with a Serbian archbishopric. #That is the mountain where the villas (fairies) lived and from which they flew down to help our heroes or to preserve the Serbian down-trodden rights.#” in SERBIA IN LIGHT AND DARKNESS.
There are customs like putting out food for “the lord of the house” who supposedly lives in the attic in village houses, which is obviously a holdover from pagan times and is inviting trouble (not recognized as such but it is).
Velimirovic in his two books, the previous one and THE RELIGIOUS SPIRIT OF THE SLAVS admits that the main sin of the Serbs is pride, but then goes on to exeplify this in the glorification of their pugnacity and refusal to be servants (granted the Turks were vicious, but this started after some Macedonian Serbian bishop decided that Serbs needed not only their church, which is all any real Orthodox needs, and were not being persecuted in those days, when Turks even financed building some churches, but needed their country as well, and started the provocations that got the Turks mad enough to give legitimate reasons for Serbian revolts which never went anywhere, the Albanians who hated the Turks as did the Arabs elsewhere, had as much as anyone else did to do with getting them out of the Balkans and the famous Battle of Kosovo included many non Serb forces, later Serbs who wanted a fight no matter on whose side gladly acted as mercenaries for the Turks in other lands, volunteers not conscripted janissaries).
Basically, these two peoples are mirror images of each other, in touchiness about pride issues like the slightest perceived insult to their respective peoples, or whatever. In the days of the Austro Hungarian Empire, the Serbian propaganda would refer to charging toll on bridges as “atrocities” and painted Pascha as relevant to the resurrection of the Serbian people, taking the focus off Jesus Christ.
Baptism and chrismation are all very well, but if the infant then grows up in a culture that defines Orthodox as Serb per se and most don’t even go to church except for special events, and glorify bloody monsters in their legends, and cling to folk ways with a religious zeal and these incl. things designed to invoke spirits, what do you think is going to happen? A real purge is needed over there, such as was attempted in parts of England and elsewhere by protestants and sometimes RC against occultism disguised as folkways.
Velimirovic spoke of the Serbian soul being incomplete without some stretch of land Bulgaria had claimed. What early Father or even later one speaks of a nation having a soul? it is individuals who are souls. The whole tone I get out of Serbia, velimirovic and later, is one that purely pagan tribal fleshly pseudo religion, with a veneer of Orthodoxy. Like those you find elsewhere in Europe and sometimes America, with a veneer of other kinds of Christianity. Precisely these things also play a role (observed by Christians with distress and by neopagans with joy) in leading people into neopaganism.
And he lies through his teeth in one of those books about the Bulgarians, who did not just accept slavery but were overrun and lost a war.
Kosovo? Old history. get over it.
What does the legend of St. Prince Lazar say? That the Theotokos visited him and said he had two choices. A heavenly crown or an earthly crown, acceptance of the latter would forfeit the former.
Saint Lazar chose the heavenly crown. Which meant of course defeat. CONTRARY TO THE WAY THE STORY IS MISREPRESENTED BY THE MODERN SERBS, the original story (which can probably still be found on a archive of the Decani Monastery online, but after I used them as a source online, they pulled some information), there was NO COVENANT TO DIE FREE RATHER THAN LIVE UNDER SLAVERY. NO ONE BUT LAZAR KNEW THEY WERE GOING OUT TO DEFEAT.
Later, a prisoner awaiting death in the sultan’s camp, he wondered if he should have made this choice for his people, without asking them first, NOTE THAT, WITHOUT ASKING THEM FIRST, and an angel came and told him, that in heaven the saints of the Serbs were praying for their defeat, because there was no way their souls could be saved if they stayed free.
Such a mess were they then, and still are, looking back longingly to a pretentious petty “empire” of worldly fleshly glory, and other sins of theirs, that only under oppression would they be praying enough to have any relationship with God.
So, I repeat, Kosovo? Get over it.