In Serbia, efforts are being made to ensure that the results of education are measured based on the presence of religious classes, as well as the number of consecrated celebratory cakes and school buildings. Therefore, Patriarch Porfirije personally consecrated the Zemun High School and said on that occasion that the school educates and educates, and the Slavic root of those Serbian words reveals something much more and more significant than the mere process of gathering information. "To be brought up means to be nourished, and to be educated means to shape one's face," said Porfirius and added that the meaning of those words can include "the outer side of school learning and the inner side of building our personality."
The dedication of the school was attended by the minister of education, state and church officials, and the patriarch explained to all of them that the goals of education have their predestination in the Serbian language. Mastering the Serbian language and the naive etymology of words, allows Porfirio to consecrate school buildings, teach the minister and state officials, because he has already mastered the goals of education. That is why there is nothing strange in the fact that the minister of education serves the religious leader during the consecration of the school. Namely, the patriarch defines and at the same time fulfills educational goals, while the minister and state officials are present to confirm this.
The nation, however, is not given once and for all, writes Dominik Šnaper in the book Community of Citizens (Novi Sad, 1996), but is "the fruit of the process of integration" through the school system, which is not only "for technical training, but above all what is shaped in the school citizen", capable of adopting the values of common life and accepting the idea of the common good. "This is how the determinism of birth becomes freedom", concludes Šnaper, that is, in the process of education, pupils and students overcome the determinism of the Serbian language and the Orthodox religion, and become free and responsible citizens. However, the current regime has given up on the basic goals of education - this has already been written about here - and the patriarch fills that void, although his presence is unnecessary, redundant, and even harmful.
And we saw the results of Porfiry's education in the Church of Christ's Resurrection in Podgorica. There, on the territory of neighboring Montenegro, the patriarch agitated as part of a campaign to increase the number of Serbs in the population census. In the presence of ministers, the Russian ambassador and politicians, Porfirije never once mentioned Montenegro, instead it became something "here", a space without a name, where "our beginning and roots are deeply planted" and "the birthplace of all Orthodox Serbs". Porphyry first rhetorically erased Montenegro, and then he planted the Serbs there, as the primordial collective in that area. And that space is wonderful, because it is "better than in other places to know who we are, what religion we are, what language we speak and what nation we belong to". But why does an unnamed place offer better knowledge than other places?
Because only in conflict with other identities and concepts, in this case the civic definition of Montenegro, can one know what Serbian religion, language and identity are. Only on the basis of religious and nationalist divisions, classification and counting can one define and delimit what is ours - and that is the entire nameless and unnamed space of Montenegro. For the purpose of the upcoming census, the patriarch pragmatically designated Montenegro - instead of Kosovo - as the root, beginning and birthplace of the Orthodox Serbs. Marks that are traditionally reserved for Kosovo, the patriarch reassigned to Montenegro due to the urgency of Serbian nationalist mobilization in that area.
In church-nationalist sermons, Orthodoxy precedes everything, even when the Serbian people lived for centuries without "their own state" they never "gave up on themselves", Porfirje says and points out: "He never abandoned his Orthodox faith and the church and it guided him, kept and preserved until our days". If we were to intervene in the structure of this message, we would come to a paradoxical result: the church guarded and preserved the Serbian people, but for what? For the secular, liberal and democratic state of "our days", which separates the state from the church, and where the church is not the commanding structure of society, but is only one voice among many, and Patriarch Porfirije is not a Serbian spiritual leader - but citizen Perić. In other words, the church protected the people so that the people would deprive it of political and social power and influence on the people's/citizen's life. However, as an Orthodox nationalist and populist, Porfiri does not even think of drawing a conclusion that would deprive him of political power and influence.
That is why the Serbian spiritual leader has to attack: "We live in a time of destruction, permanent traditional but objective identities and the imposition of constructed identities. Therefore, it is important to defend and preserve what we are, what is called identity - our religious, personal, family, national identity of our ancestors, but also of our descendants." In order to impose and establish himself as a spiritual leader, the patriarch cunningly undertakes the following maneuver: instead of identifying himself as a cleric - whom the modern state deprives of political administration and normative influence on society as a whole - he rhetorically uses the terms church and faith. That is why you will never hear that the clergy preserved the people, but that the church preserved the people.
And the practical political benefit of the maneuver is in neutralizing critics and opponents as those who are against freedom of religion. And only when he hid his true identity with a rhetorical smokescreen and confused the democratic public, the monk Porfirje comes forward as someone who is eager for political rule in the world, claims the title of spiritual leader and mobilizes the Serbian masses for defense against forces that supposedly threaten destruction. What Porphyry sees as the "imposition of constructed identities" are in fact the values of the nation as a community of citizens (Schnapper). The patriarch is a Serbian nationalist, but he is against the establishment of a modern nation-state in Montenegro and Serbia and is against the integration of citizens.
The transformation of Porfiry into a "Serbian spiritual leader" does not only serve to disregard the norms of public life within the secular state, but also the restraint imposed by the Holy Scriptures. In this sense, the words of the apostle Paul are not valid for the Serbian spiritual leader: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female, because you are all one (man) in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3,28, XNUMX). The apostolic criteria cease to be valid for the Serbian spiritual leader and instead of the "integration" of all Orthodox believers in Christ, because there are no more Serbs or Montenegrins, the leader introduces unrest, division and hostility among believers, thus destroying the Church.
The bishops from Montenegro follow their patriarch, the media write; however, “leave them alone, the blind are leading the blind; and if the blind leads the blind, both will fall into the pit", warns Christ in the Gospel according to Matthew.
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