Patriarch Irinej meets with Prime Minister Cvetkovic on the occasion of return of church records to the Church

Today at the Serbian Patriarchate in Belgrade His Holiness IRINEJ, Archbishop of Pec, Metropolitan of Belgrade-Karlovci and Serbian Patriarch received in an official visit the delegation of the Government of the Republic of Serbia led by Dr Mirko Cvetkovic, Prime Minister, on the occasion of the return of the church records taken from the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1946.

The meeting was attended by His Grace Bishop Atanasije of Hvosno, Vicar of Patriarch; protopresbyter-staurophor Stojadin Pavlovic, head of the Patriarchate Governing Board; Mr. Milan Markovic, Minister of Public Administration and Local Self-Government; and Mr. Nebojsa Bradic, Minister of Culture.

After the meeting, Patriarch addressed the public emphasizing that a lots of time had passed since the church records had been taken from the Serbian Orthodox Church. He  thanked the current Government on bringing that segment of the Serbian culture, to be used by believers firstly, the Church and then by historians and all those who deal with genealogies.

At the end Prime Minister Cvetkovic stressed that the Government of Serbia wanted to correct the injustice which had been done to the Serbian Orthodox Church and to all the churches and church communities when twenty thousand church records were taken in 1946 with the explanation that it was necessary to copy the records. After more than 60 years the church records will be returned to its proprietors.