Serbian Orthodox Church

Information Service of
the Serbian Orthodox Church
April 19, 2005

PRESS CONFERENCE ON “LET US BREATHE LIFE INTO SERBIA” PASCHAL BENEFIT CONCERT

On Friday, April 22, 2005, at 1:00 p.m. a press conference will be held on the “Let us breathe life into Serbia” Paschal Benefit Concert.

Speakers at the conference will include His Grace Bishop Irinej of Backa, Mr. Minja Tomasevic, the organizer of the campaign, Mr. Vojin Djordjevic on behalf of the SI&SI Company, the general sponsor of the concert, and director Ivica Vidanovic.

It is our honor to invite representatives of the media to attend this event and become involved in this philanthropic campaign of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church launched the “Let us breathe life into Serbia” campaign in 2001 and has been conducting it for the past five years with the sponsorship of His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle. The basic goal of the campaign is to provide desperately needed incubators for prematurely born children to all maternity wards in Serbia, as well as other equipment.

In the past three years infant mortality, especially for prematurely born children, has reduced by half, we believe in part thanks to this campaign. During this period 77 stationary incubators, 3 transporter incubators, 17 phototherapy devices, 15 patient monitors, 9 pulse oximeters, 3 sterilizers, 1 respiratory machine, 1 suction set and 1 bilirubinometer were distributed.

Serbia still has an infant mortality rate of more than 9 percent, whereas infant mortality in Western Europe varies between 3 and 5 percent. The basic cause of this tragic situation in our country is the lack of incubators and other equipment in the maternity wards. During the current year, we wish to provide incubators to as great a number of medical institutions as possible.

In order to remind and caution Serbian society of the necessity of obtaining additional neonatal devices, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church has been organizing the “Let us breathe life into Serbia” paschal benefit concert every year. This year the traditional concert will be held on the second day of Pascha, May 2, 2005, in the concert hall at Kolarceva Zaduzbina. His Holiness Patriarch Pavle will be attending the concert, as well as other eminent figures from the life of the Church and Serbian society.

Performers will include Katarina Radivojevic, Marija Karan, Kalina Kovacevic; the groups Teodulija, Belo Platno and Gora; and the choirs of the monastery of Kovilj, Mojsije Petrovic and the Church of the Holy Trinity in Zemun. The general sponsor of the concert is VODA VODA.

All proceeds from ticket sales will be used to purchase incubators. The entire concert will be inspired by the spirit of the most joyous holiday of holidays – Pascha.

DOOR OF CHURCH OF PROTECTION IN KNIN BROKEN DOWN

The night of April 18, 2005 the door on the church of the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos in Knin was broken down. The police conducted an on site investigation but the perpetrator has not yet been found. This church is constantly the target of vandals. In the past year it has been broken into three times. Fascist symbols were also drawn on the church multiple times.

DELIVERY OF HELP FOR REBUILDING OF CHILANDAR
FROM SERBS IN CANADA

His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Pavle received a delegation from the Ministry for Diaspora of the Republic of Serbia Government including deputy minister Aleksandar Cotric, assistant Miodrag Jaksic, and the president of the Church-School Council of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Vancouver, Dr. Goran Stanisavljevic, in the Belgrade Patriarchate.

The new church of St. Michael the Archangel in Vancouver, which was recently consecrated, together with a large Serbian Cultural and Spiritual Center, is a unique architectural complex worth some seven million dollars and built exclusively with the donations of faithful Serbs in Canada.

The delegation presented His Holiness Patriarch Pavle with a plaque of the Church-School Council in Vancouver, and a monetary donation for rebuilding the monastery of Chilandar, collected from faithful in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

His Holiness said on this occasion that the Church shares its concern for the faithful in Serbia and abroad, and that he regularly calls on both to be good and honorable people, to live harmony with other peoples, and never to build their own fortunes on the misfortunes of others.

Mssrs. Aleksandar Cotric and Miodrag Jaksic emphasized that the Ministry for Diaspora enjoys good cooperation with the bishops and clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church abroad, and that representatives of the Church will be among those involved in the drafting of a new Law on cooperation with the diaspora and the Emigrant Census Project.

DISCUSSION REGARDING PROTODEACON RADOMIR RAKIC’S BIBLE ENCYCLOPEDIA

On Thursday, April 21, 2005 at 7:30 p.m. a promotion of the two volume “Bible Encyclopedia” of Protodeacon Radomir Rakic will be held in the small auditorium of Kolarceva Zaduzbina. Participants in the discussion regarding this major effort in the field of Bible studies among the Serbs will include the author, His Grace Bishop Atanasije (Rakita), Prof. Dr. Dragan Milin and Djordje Janic.

FILM ABOUT THE SUFFERING OF THE SERBS
– SLAUGHTER, CONVERT, EXPEL

In the Yugoslav Film Museum, Kosovska 11, on Wednesday, April 20, 2005, at 9:00 a.m. the premiere of a documentary film entitled “Pobij, pokrsti, proteraj” (Slaughter, convert, expel) will be held. The film talks about the suffering of the Serbs in Muslim and Croat war camps in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992-96. The author and co-producer is Svetlana Petrusic, journalist and publicist. The producer is Ivica Vidanovic.

“Slaughter, convert, expel” is a political documentary film whose basic theme is the torture of war camp inmates on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period of the civil war from 1992. The main story unfolds in the municipality of Odzak in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MEMORIAL SERVICE IN GRADINA

In Donja Gradina, the biggest killing field in the Jasenovac concentration camp system, where 366,000 Serbs, Jews, Roma and other patriots perished under the most horrible circumstances, the 60 year anniversary of the release of Jasenovac prisoners was commemorated on April 17, 2005. His Eminence Metropolitan Nikolaj of Dabro-Bosnia, with the concelebration of His Grace Bishop Grigorije, served a memorial service for the victims of Jasenovac at the cemetery of Kosute in the presence of some 10,000 citizens and faithful. In his memorial service, Metropolitan Nikolaj spoke as follows:

The waters turned crimson and the snow scarlet from the great quantities of blood shed by Serbian martyrs. O, resurrected Christ, o, King of Kings, dry our tears and receive these Serbian victims where life and song are eternal. The day will reveal what black night hides for even the night is never without a witness. And on Judgment Day when the dead are resurrected, 700,000 victims will testify. Hate closes the heart and love cannot enter it, and the main cause of war is pride.

Have you ever been caught in a strong storm and found yourself knocking on a closed door that remained shut without so much as a response from the people who live inside? It is the same when you come across a closed heart. This was experienced strongly by Serbs during World War II in this region and beyond. Without knowing why or whom they had offended, they were taken from their warm hearths to concentration camps, tortured and, although innocent, murdered in various ways, both in Jasenovac and here, where many of them now rest and await their resurrection.

Today, with this memorial service and in other ways, we are commemorating the 60th anniversary of the break out from Jasenovac concentration camp by the few prisoners who survived in comparison with the 700,000 innocents who were tortured and murdered here. Today, as always, we remember the innocent victims of this region in our prayers.

After World War II the leader of the Yugoslav Communists did not find it necessary to come to Jasenovac although he traveled all over the world. Similarly, the recently deceased head of the Roman Catholic Church did not find it necessary to come to Jasenovac although he went to Auschwitz to pay his respects to the innocent victims there. He also visited many countries, and he fell to his knees and kissed the ground of the country where he came, and he prayed to God there. He visited Croatia three times, and Bosnia-Herzegovina twice. And he preached “The LORD abhors bloodthirsty and deceitful men.” (Psa 5:6)

Unfortunately, people often cannot see the forest for the trees, i.e. they do not see the bright light and reality. Thus in the process of capturing Serbs, hatred has opened a peculiar sight that allows them to see every mote but prevents them from seeing the true and complete truth. St. Nikolaj of Ochrid and Zhicha wrote a service for the new Serbian great-martyrs and martyrs where he says: “Your suffering and great pain have passed, now you are in the Kingdom and light of peace, Serbian martyrs, noble sons. The spectacles of horror and shame have passed, such as the world has not seen since the days of Nero.”

War-time passions guided the men who tortured and murdered the innocent. Their tears became their food day and night. (Psa 42:3) Why have so many Serbs left their native lands and live now in foreign countries? Because those people remained faithful to their Orthodox faith, their nation, their name, their history, their heroes, and their pride. Theirs was a silent protest against those who committed these crimes. The Polish writer Sienkiewicz wrote in his works about these tragic events as he had written earlier about others. He voiced an unambiguous protest against the subjugators and murderers of slaves, as clear as the horn of Jericho.

The Serbian people have been and remain proud of their history, their authentic music, their national intellectual creations, their creativity, their Code of Dusan, their St. Sava and other Serbian male and female saints. They warmed themselves as they still do today by the same fire as St. Sava and all the other great Serbian figures.

We know what it means to be a slave. Tears were the host and joy the guest in our house. That is why we do not want there to be any slaves in the world. We will not allow ourselves to be a haughty master over other people. According to them, we do not have the same external cultural glow as they do but we have more soul, as the Orthodox have always had more soul, including those who were martyred here. We, whose bodies were enslaved are not the real slaves. The slaves are those who seek their revenge against other peoples. They are the slaves of the old definitions of slavery and freedom.

Because of this, we Serbs do not despite but pity them. For the torturers at Jasenovac, Gradina and in other places, we have no condemnation but pity, and we leave all they did and all they have done to God, the just judge, and to them. All this has been said and written by thinkers and writers such as Mickiewicz, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solovyev and many others.

Speaking today at this holy and much suffering site, at this memorial service, we are accompanied by thousands and thousands of painful, human death cries. I beg of them not to hold against me and not to condemn me for my poverty of expression if I have not said everything in this brief remembrance of their suffering . Here, too, there is a battle between human might and God’s Justice, slaves against masters, gladiators against Christ.

Eternal repose to all who perished and who by their faith affirmed the ultimate triumph of Christ.

Glory to them and God grant them a place by His side.

Metropolitan Nikolaj of Dabro-Bosnia

RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION WEEK IN AUSTRIA

From April 11-16, 2005 in Vienna and other parts of south Austria, an event called Religious Instruction Week was held for the first time. In over 200 schools and several central locations, the general public was informed about the extent to which religious instruction contributes to the education of the student. The main motto of this important event was “To live well in the full sense”, and it was jointly organized by representatives of the Roman Catholic, Evangelistic, Orthodox and Old Catholic Church, as well as the Muslim and Jewish religious community.

[Serbian Translation Services]