My first knowledge of the church, in the sense that it was first mentioned in the ancient Dictionary - a building where religious ceremonies are performed - dates back to my early childhood. Whenever I went to the countryside in the summer, I never found my grandfather at home, but at the cemetery.
He spent every beautiful day carving stone for his eternal house. During breaks, he repaired something on the church. Most often the roof, which did not leak just by God's will. And the dilapidated blue door, so that donkeys, sheep or any small poultry would not take refuge in the church from the rain. Self-initiated, or by the will of the owner. Goats were still forbidden by law back then...
No law, however, forbade what my grandfather did. He respected the work of his ancestors, whose descendants in the village were many more then than today, but only a few entered the church.
Most of them in my village became believers only in '89. years. So sudden and radical that the only remaining Chetnik in the end begged his relatives out of anguish to bury him with a pentacle and without a priest.
***
I encountered the church in the second meaning from the dictionary, as a community of Christian believers, for the first time about forty years ago. As a young journalist with serious ambitions, today it would be called a researcher, I dealt with the Montenegrin Orthodox Church and its autocephaly.
Until I met the walking Montenegrin - and not only her - encyclopedia, professor Ratko Đurović, topics related to religious institutions and organizations were as distant to me as those from the party committee.
Temples were something else entirely. Orthodox, Catholic, Islamic and all the others and how they interested me and my generation, as monuments of culture and life in general.
I met the first zealous believer in Pobjeda, he remained the only one until the war, and then the "opium for the people", as the communists would say, began to work en masse...
***
Remembering those pre-war days, when the sanctification of pits and the carrying of bones awakened vengeful instincts under the guise of religious rites, I feel like publishing without editing what I think about the inflamed Orthodoxy in a country where every day we see the violation of at least nine out of ten commandments of God. I won't, of course, I still believe that not every word can be in the newspaper...
But proven criminals can at least carry the cross around their necks, the more they recover, the higher the weight. Those who have suffered from chronic thievery for a long time also swear by St. Basil, and children's quarrels in front of the school end with the oath: "I will kill you, Ostroga mi"...
I will go into details, I doubt that it can be of use to those who have barely drawn their swords in a controversy about a law.
That law was done wrong, but it is neither the first nor the last, under this government, different ones are not even possible. And this government will last, and be even worse, as long as the long-deceased saints in Podgorica and Nikšić gather more citizens than living freedom fighters, whatever god they pray to and whatever their surname is... Let me not dwell on this topic, better to go back to the beginning of the story...
***
So, that '82/3. in Pobjeda, which was still in '44. closed the pages for any religious issues, my long text "The Montenegrin Church was autocephalous" was published. It listed all the documents that a journalist could obtain within a reasonable time. From Ivan Crnojević, through the works of Nikodim Milaš and the Constitution of the Holy Synod of the CPC, to the edict of Regent Alexander, which abolished the Montenegrin Orthodox Church.
The first attack came at the morning collegium from some zealous editors. Who allowed this little girl to write about the church, they called Zoroma from the Committee, what kind of way is this? What is disputed, asked my editor Momir M. Marković, everything is correctly quoted in the text, let the Committee call me when they want to deal with history and journalism...
They didn't call. On the contrary, sensible people at the top of the state - what my dear Balša would say, Oxford students today - stopped the party hawks, and the institutions started organizing scientific meetings on the subject. And others, of course, are not the Serbian-Montenegrin national and church problems from yesterday...
Later, I dealt with religious organizations only sporadically, realizing that neither national nor religious interests, but very specific political and property interests, were behind it on either side. Since 98, when both secular and spiritual Montenegrin leaders were ordained in a short space of time, I have been fighting that story, except for the part that concerns the violation of human rights.
***
After decades of general progress, which for now only our government and their EU notice, on the same topic, neither the state nor the churches threaten scientific gatherings, but - with bare force. It's like they're getting ready for war.
Well, Metropolitan Amfilochius chose his words much more carefully than usual on Trinity Day. Bishop Joanikije even called for dialogue. It seemed that everything would go well, but only until the retired Bishop Atanasije showed live what that dialogue would look like.
- Don't let anyone provoke us from Herzegovina to take St. Vasilija. Don't let Montenegro experience the fate that our people and church experience in Kosovo.
Did I understand this correctly? Not the eye of the saint, it is clear that he means the relics, Ostrog is unsuitable for transmission. I mean this threat to Kosovo, does it mean that all of Montenegro will be evicted or "only" its Montenegrin population?
***
Wishing to speed up the said dialogue from Belgrade, Serbian Patriarch Irinej, who has not yet retired, formulated conclusions in advance.
- What are Montenegrins, if not Serbs. Just as there are people from Šumadin, people from Vojvodina, people from Ličan, Bosnians, and people from Herzegovina, so there are people from Srbičnogorsk.
They exist, no normal person has anything against it, I've been friends with some of them since birth. But there are also about three hundred thousand who are only Montenegrins. Small, big or none, it doesn't matter, they are only Montenegrins. Which the Serbian Church always invites to dialogue by first thoroughly insulting them.
***
- Indeed, the patriarch really exaggerated this time - said respected Serbian journalist and publicist Slaviša Lekić - it's as if we've gone back 20 or 15 years.
Thanks, colleague, but he didn't overdo it just this time. And he's not the only one! And yes, we did come back, without like. Not 15-20, we are now where we were 30 years ago.
The only thing missing is someone ready enough to break the first Latin tablet. And declare the first SAO...
PS "It's time for Serbian priests to leave Montenegrin churches" - they are ready, ready and professional Montenegrin patriots. Especially those with a changing national identity, whose voice has only market value and that only with the officials of this regime. If there was anything, if not professional, at least human in them, they would know that such headlines are not in the service of national identity but - Nazism!!!
Bonus video:
