Information Service of
the Serbian Orthodox Church
July 15, 2003

His Grace Artemy, Bishop of Raska-Prizren, served the Holy Hierarchal Liturgy together with clergymen and monastics in the remnants of the Monastery of Sts. Cosma and Damian, the Unmercenary Healers, at Zociste, near Orahovac. This Monastery, dedicated to the Saint Healers, has been in ruins for four years, after it was set on fire and plundered in the summer of 1999 by Albanian extremists.

Clergymen, both priests and monastics, as well as the faithful from the region of Orahovac and northern Kosovo – approximately 100 of them – arrived escorted by KFOR early in the morning.

Bishop Artemy addressed the faithful and thanked God for gathering Serbs once again around their ruined shrine, expressing hope that soon conditions would be provided for the renovation of this Monastery and of the monastic life in it.

After the Holy Hierarchal Liturgy a memorial service was held on the graves of the Abbot Damian and monastic Moses, whereupon the feast cake was cut.

This year’s feast of the Saint Healers in the Monastery of Zociste passed without incident owing to strong security forces of KFOR. After the service in the Monastery, His Grace Bishop Artemy and the people visited Velika Hoca, the nearby Serbian village where they had festive lunch.

At the same time, the feast was marked in the renovated village church, in the village of Novake, 20 km east of Prizren, where the first Serbs returned in February this year. Priest Aleksandar Nespalic served the Holy Hieararchal Liturgy and 5 buses full of Serbs exiled from this region arrived for this occasion at Novake, to celebrate this feast together with their co-villagers. Sixty-one houses have already been roofed in this village, but there is much more work to be done so as to renew life in it, as well in all the other villages which were systematically destroyed in the summer of 1999, after the KFOR’s arrival.