Serbian Orthodox Church

Information Service of
the Serbian Orthodox Church
May 13, 2006

FORMAL CELEBRATION OF ST VASILIJE OSTROSKI IN BANJICA
METROPOLITAN AMFILOHIJE: OUR OWN LEADERS WANT TO ALIENATE BROTHERS, TO DIVIDE AND TO STEAL OUR HOLY SHRINE
CELEBRATION OF THE FEAST OF ST VASILIJE OSTROSKI IN NIKSIC
MATIJA BECKOVIC: OPTIMISM SHOULD BE MANDATORY FOR MONTENEGRO REGARDING THE “NEVERENDUM”
PROFESSOR KEITH PECKLERS OF THE GREGORIAN UNIVERSITY IN ROME GIVES TWO LECTURES AT THE ORTHODOX THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE

FORMAL CELEBRATION OF ST VASILIJE OSTROSKI IN BANJICA

Numerous faithful gathered yesterday morning in the church of St. Vasilije Ostroski in Banjica to celebrate the patronal feast in a liturgical community gathered around the bishop, priests and deacons.

Officiating at the Holy Hierarchal Liturgy was His Grace Bishop Atanasije of Hvostno with the concelebration of hierarchal administrator Protopresbyter-Stavrophor Cedomir Vuckovic, Protopresbyter Dragan Ubiparipovic, Protonamesnik Petar Lukavac, Presbyter Jovan Petrovic, Protodeacon Radomir Rakic and Deacon Dragan Sovljanski. Chanting during Holy Liturgy was by young people who gather daily in this parish church. After Holy Liturgy where almost all of those gathered partook in communion, Bishop Atanasije cut the slava cake with this year’s slava host and the parish priests, Presbyter Simon Klickovic and Presbyter Milan Lazarevic, who from the very beginning have taken care of the building of this magnificent church and parish home which, from day to day, is growing and assuming an architectural form that reminds of the golden age of Karageorge’s rule over Serbia.

Bishop Atanasije led the priests, deacons and all the faithful in a religious procession that circled thrice around the church. “We all prayed thrice to God that He stay with the Serbian people and with all those who hate us and all those who love us,” said the Bishop at the end of the last circle of the procession.

In an inspired homily Bishop Atanasije spoke of the time in which St. Vasilije lived and served. Reminding the people of the difficult times under Turkish enslavement in which the Saint lived, Bishop Atanasije said that every period in which the Orthodox people is horrible and that we cannot rightly say that our own time is the worst. “All Christians, Serbs especially, have always been persecuted – because we are not of this world.”

At the end of his homily, the Bishop emphasized that it is good that a church built for the glory of the Living God and dedicated to Vasilije, saint of Ostrog and Tvrdos has been built in Banjica. He praised the aforementioned priests for their efforts in bringing together the young in Eucharistic communion and in seeking to complete this beautiful house of God. “I believe that next year the church will be fuller and that under the banner of the completely finished parish center all the faithful will find their place at the agape, the banquet of love.”

METROPOLITAN AMFILOHIJE: OUR OWN LEADERS WANT TO ALIENATE BROTHERS, TO DIVIDE AND TO STEAL OUR HOLY SHRINE

His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral and His Grace Bishop Jovan of Dioclea, hegumen of Ostrog, served Holy Hierarchal Liturgy in the Upper Monastery of Ostrog on the occasion of the feast day of St. Vasilije Ostroski.

We have gathered here to be come with our Lord, to become one in heart and in soul with each other, for this Holy Shrine calls us to unity, said Metropolitan Amfilohije in his archpastoral homily. “Even today there are those who would like to alienate brothers, there are those who would like to separate us from the Holy Shrine, to steal this holy shrine from us, to divide this Holy Shrine but the Holy Shrine exists, not to divide us but to unite us. There are those who do not know what to do with this Holy reliquary, because Holy Father Vasilije was born in Herzegovina, the ancestral home of Saint Sava. Today those who want to divide brothers, to divide the state, want to snatch holy relics, too,” warned the Bishop.

He said that if Saint Vasilije were to behave “according to their lack of wisdom, then he would have to leave this Holy Place and to return to his mother in Herzegovina. If we divide the ancestral land of Saint Sava and his heirs then Saint Arsenije, too, would have to move out of Montenegro. There would be no room here for Saint Peter of Cetinje, either, who wanted to create a Slavic Serbian empire.”

Metropolitan Amfilohije asked what we could do today then with the dedicated written by Lovcen prophet Bishop Rade, recalling Njegos’ verses, “Our own leaders, God's curse be on their souls / Carved the empire into little pieces / Sowed the bitter seed of disharmony / And thus poisoned the entire Serbian tribe.” “Today once again our new leaders are sowing bitter seed that they may poison brotherly love, that they may use it to divide brothers, [to divide] what God has united, [and] what the holy relics of our Holy Father Vasilije unite. Who dares to divide us, to separate us from the reliquary of St. Vasilije, the reliquary of St. Arsenije the Archbishop and Enlightener of the Serbs? Who dares to divide us gathered around the reliquary of St. Peter of Cetinje, the great unifier and peacemaker?”

Their presence among us is the best witness of the indestructible unity of this people and this state, said Bishop Amfilohije.

Source: Svetigora Press (S.Z./R.V.)

CELEBRATION OF THE FEAST OF ST VASILIJE OSTROSKI IN NIKSIC

Over 10,000 faithful residing in Niksic celebrated the holiday of St. Vasilije Ostroski, the heavenly protector of the town under Mt. Trebjesa with a formal religious procession. The procession was headed from the Orthodox Cathedral in Niksic through the town streets by His Eminence Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral and Their Graces Bishop Joanikije of Budimlje and Niksic, Bishop Grigorije of Zahumlje and Herzegovina, Bishop Jovan of Dioclea, Bishop Maksim of Hum, and retired Bishop Atanasije of Zahumlje and Herzegovina.

“St. Vasilije is the mercy of God,” said Bishop Grigorije in his archpastoral homily in the main town square. St. Vasilije announces and witnesses that Christ has conquered death. And every person who lives here on earth and brags about his horses, his wagons, his power, strength and money has no answer to the question, what will you say, man, when they come tonight and ask for your soul if there is no answer to death, if the purpose of human life is to walk to the dark grave, where everything ends, and to be the food of the worms and the joy of serpents? That is why light is necessary, that is why Christ is necessary, above all and before all. That is why God the Father, the All-Maintainer, sent His Only Son into this world to bring light, to scatter the darkness and to defeat and humiliate Satan, who dared rise up against God,” said the Bishop.

Participants in the religious procession sang the anthem “There, There, Beyond Those Hills” at the newly built monument to King Nikola, who wrote the song.

His Grace Bishop Joanikije of Budimlje and Niksic served Holy Hierarchal Liturgy in the St Vasilije Ostroski Orthodox Cathedral in Niksic.

During the course of the Liturgy Protopresbyter Radovan Bigovic, a professor at the Theological Faculty of the Serbian Orthodox Church, delivered the homily, saying that St. Vasilije is “one of the obvious proofs that our God is not a distant and absent God but a God who walks on this planet, who is here with us in our historical fate. All our centuries merged in St. Vasilije, all our ages came together but at the same time the time of the future also echoed through him.”

“He may be the only uncontroversial figure in Montenegro and not only there. The national soul has not had and does not have as much love toward any one person as toward St. Vasilije Ostroski,” concluded Father Radovan Bigovic.

Source: Svetigora Press (S.C./R.V.)

MATIJA BECKOVIC: OPTIMISM SHOULD BE MANDATORY FOR MONTENEGRO REGARDING THE “NEVERENDUM”

As part of the “Days of St. Vasilije Ostroski” event a roundtable discussion was held on the topic of “Montenegro-Identity Crisis” where Presbyter Professor Dr. Radovan Bigovic, Professor Dr. Bogoljub Sijakovic, Professor Dr. Savo Lausevic, Mr. Dusan Krcunovic, Professor Veselin Matovic, and writers Radomir Uljarevic and Milutin Micovic presented their thoughts on the issue.

Upon the strong insistence of the public, academician Matija Beckovic addressed the problem of the identity crisis in Montenegro in characteristic fashion. Saying that what awaited us was a "neverendum", he concurred with everything said by the speakers at the gathering, adding that he would just add a little bit of optimism to it.

“The only problem Montenegro has never had is an identity problem. Without solving any of her other problems, she has made an effort to require this one, too, and thus we have the Montenegrin identity crisis to talk about now as well. It was not so long ago that someone in these parts was asked what language he spoke, and he replied, ‘I am Jovan’s son, Jovan is Milos’ son, Milos is Petar’s son, Petar is Stevan’s son, and Stevan was the father of Vuk Karadzic,’” noted Beckovic.*

“Optimism should be mandatory for Montenegro regarding this ‘neverendum’ - the very name given it by the people says it all – whose purpose is to confirm the new identity represented by the non-governmental organizations. For the first time that we can remember, we have a church that is a non-governmental organization, an academy [of arts and sciences] that is a non-governmental organization, and soon we can expect to have an army that is a non-governmental organization. So that just as we have only appointed metropolitans and academicians, we can also have appointed generals and sirdars [noblemen] and these will be all those with the ‘honor’ to call themselves so to the faces of all Montenegrins. When we see a gathering such as this, with this many people like this, let us ask ourselves why we should be more concerned now, when there are more of us, then our forebears were who fought the same battle when there were far fewer of them. Do you see that everyone is more interested in this independent Montenegro than the Montenegrins themselves, most of all the Albanians who are offering the Montenegrins their crown in the first drawing, and in the very next one Haradinaj would be the president of Montenegro,” said Matija Beckovic.

Source: Svetigora Press (S.K.)

* Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic (1787-1864), a Serbian linguist and major reformer of the Serbian language who is considered to be the father of the modern Serbian literary language. He was born in the village of Trsic in Serbia.

PROFESSOR KEITH PECKLERS OF THE GREGORIAN UNIVERSITY IN ROME GIVES TWO LECTURES AT THE ORTHODOX THEOLOGICAL FACULTY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE

On Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 7:30 p.m. in the large amphitheatre of the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Belgrade, guest Professor Keith Pecklers of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome gave a lecture on “The Ethos of Liturgy”. In his presentation Rev. Fr. Pecklers presented the historical development of Roman rite Liturgy and emphasized several types of anaphoras of the Western type. He emphasized that the Eucharist is a sacrifice that Christ transferred to many, as the perfect gift that comes from the Father of Light. This is a great thought that resulted in much debate in the West because Western theologians under various influences began to comprehend Liturgy as a noun and not as an act. The very inspired lecture concluded with questions from interested students regarding many problems related to Western rite practices.

Yesterday in the large amphitheatre Professor Pecklers gave a second lecture on “Renewed Emphasis of the Role of the Holy Spirit in Liturgy in the West”. In his presentation, the lecturer admitted that the East is far in advance of the West with respect to pneumatology and that it is very important that the West learn from the Eastern Church, examining this critical area of theology not only from the dogmatic but also from the liturgical aspect. Professor Pecklers emphasized the importance of a transformation of the church community in the Holy Eucharist, especially in the modern age. “During Holy Liturgy the entire gathered community is offered to the Holy Father. By the force of the Holy Spirit we live as the Body of Christ in this world.” It is very important that we realize that the gathered community is also consecrated together with the Gifts. “Holiness in Liturgy gives us strength to live in the modern world.” At the end of this short lecture, Father Pecklers emphasized that it is most important that everyone understand that in the Holy Eucharist we all gather so we may live consecrated within the community. After the lecture Professor Pecklers answered the many questions of the students for a long time.