Joanikije broke eggs for Easter in vain, celebrating Đurišić, the Chetnik movement, and Saint Sava. It turned out not to be enough. He broke his own, because Belgrade does not believe in tears.
In vain, the same Joanikije a year and a few months ago celebrated Alexander Nevsky in Vasojevići as important for Montenegro because he had "courage and wisdom and reason and readiness... to lead his people, to protect them from the Western Crusaders, who wanted to overrun Russia". Moscow doesn't believe in tears either. We've been seeing that for centuries.
In vain, since ascending to the Montenegrin throne, at the behest of Belgrade, Joanikije has destroyed everything that his predecessor Amfilohije had founded in recent years, finding Saint Sava under every Montenegrin stone and bush. In vain, because Vučić trusts no one. And Putin even less. That's how it is with dictators and communists. Ever since Stalin.
It turned out, long before the signature of support for the Serbian student rebellion, that Bishop Metodije was the "pick" (not the "hand") of official Moscow and Belgrade. A priest of the utmost trust for both Porfiry and Kirill. So, Joanikije was painting and Serbifying in vain, it turned out - sorry, comrade, but business is business.
Hence, Methodius every now and then at air rallies in Russia, where he surely jumps between hundreds of drones flying towards Ukraine, sowing death across the Orthodox country and people. That's what communist ideology is and where Orthodox bishops and metropolitans are in it. Like Joanikije and Methodius, whose criticism of the communist monster and crime is limited to the borders of the former Yugoslavia. "Several thousand people fled here from the communist knife," Joanikije recently whined in some Bosnian wolf-shit, while his now-matched counterpart and the first "peak" of Russian Orthodoxy in Montenegro, Bishop Methodius, flies to Moscow where, under Putin's boot, he celebrates victory over fascism. And Stalin, of course, in whose honor the Russian people in this Putin era, and with the amen or silence of Russian priests, have erected as many as 114 memorials. Russia is a big country, so there is room for so many monuments to the dictator and criminal who, among other things, also indebted the church! Namely, independent Russian historians claim that by the beginning of World War II, Stalin had closed or demolished over 30 thousand churches and monasteries, arrested over 160 thousand priests and monks, of whom over 100 thousand were killed. Among them were 60 bishops. The number of murdered lay believers is measured in the millions.
But despite these brutal facts, Joanikije doesn't even flinch. Although the Montenegrin and Yugoslav communists were feathers compared to Comrade Stalin's Bolsheviks, Joanikije's investigation of the crimes of the "reds" ends with Jasenovac and the Built Bridge. Gulags and collective farms, Siberia and Lubyanka are not visible, which is why aggression and crimes against Ukraine are not visible today. All of which clearly shows that the Serbian Orthodox Church is an ideological, not a religious organization, and that its leaders and metropolitans are not shepherds of peace and ecumenism, but of an ideology and totalitarianism. Red Orthodoxy, that's how it turns out.
That is why, after the recently held Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the promotion of Methodius to metropolitan, the focus of local analysts was put on the wrong side. Vučić's critics from church and political circles rushed to announce that this was a warning and a slap in the face to Joaniki for his recent support for student protests in Serbia. While the essence lies in what Joaniki's favorite historian Aleksandar Raković explains. He celebrates the appointment of another metropolitan on the territory of Montenegro because it has "destroyed the dream of Montenegrin separatists", who believed that one day "the metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral would become the head of their independent church, regardless of whether that independent church is autocephalous or autonomous"! "That concept has now collapsed because we have two completely equal metropolitans", Raković himself admits.
It turns out that the favorite oppositionist of all times and regimes, Vojislav Šešelj, is rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Not because Joanikije received a reprimand before expulsion, and the Russian paratrooper Metodije a promotion, but because this decision of the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church has destroyed every, even minimal, distinctive feature of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral. Amfilohije is probably rolling over in the sky because everything he did in the last few years of his life and mandate was aimed at establishing the autonomy of the MCP under the roof of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Although at the beginning of his mandate in Montenegro, Amfilohije was no less a Serb than today's Joanikije, and no less a supporter of the character and deeds of the former Đurišić and the present-day Karadžić, over time he realized, like his ancestors from Morača when they built one of the oldest monasteries in the territory of Montenegro, "that he should be tied to Cetinje and not to Belgrade." During the processions, although they were inspired by Đukanović's anti-Serbism and the bizarre law, the late Metropolitan and his spokesman Perović, Father Gojko, spread ecumenism, neglecting sister Serbia and mother Russia. For Amfilohije, Vučić and Putin were dictators and communists, and the statehood and independence of Montenegro were an unquestionable matter that also required an adequate solution to the position of the Orthodox Church. Not in a vulgar, partisan and violent way, as Đukanović tried, but through dialogue and politics within the church and clergy. For this purpose, Amfilohije also formed the Diocesan Council as a separate body that covered only four units of the Serbian Orthodox Church from the territory of Montenegro, and whenever the Fundamental Agreement was mentioned, Amfilohije emphasized that it would be signed in Cetinje and that it would be signed by the Montenegrin Metropolitan and not the Serbian Patriarch.
It turned out that Amfilohije remembered too late. His death not only stopped these processes, but also brought things back to 91-92. Belgrade and Moscow immediately went on the offensive. The Diocesan Council was abolished overnight as a body contrary to the structure of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and Joanikije Mićović, a pale shadow of his predecessor, was promoted to the new metropolitan. Both in intellectual and ecclesiastical terms. Methodius was promoted to bishop, and his popularity with the flock was very quickly recognized by the competent authorities of official Belgrade and Moscow. Thus, through the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, church leaders and the majority of the clergy, the most important channel for the spread of malignant Russian influence and the ideology of "red Orthodoxy" was installed. With Putin as the supreme leader. That channel is much more dangerous because it is far more influential and aggressive than the party units of some Mandić, Knežević, Joković and similar dajkovićs.
This symbiosis of dark ideology and backward religion, which holds both political and church leaders, and thus the security services, in its hands, shows that Montenegro will have no peace until essential and deep democratic changes take place in Belgrade and Moscow. It is clear that neither Putin nor Vučić are reconciled with the independence of Montenegro, nor with its membership in NATO, nor with its future membership in the EU. Which was recently, shyly, mentioned and supported by the current metropolitan. Joanikije, not Methodije. The latter was at the same time telling fairy tales to the Vasojevićs how Alexander Nevsky personally “saved them from the penetration of Catholicism from Albania”!
The biggest losers in the whole story turn out to be the local promoters of Greater Serbia and Mother Russia in Montenegro. Politicians and priests, from Joanikije and Mandić, through Gojko and Milojko, to Backović and Koprivica. No matter how much they swear allegiance to both Mother Serbia and Mother Russia, Moscow and Belgrade look at them with contempt, as pawns on a nameless territory, which is important only because of its access to the sea. Of course, this will not make our Orthodox believers wise. On the contrary. They will continue, like Joanikije, to question where they went wrong in order to prove themselves to Belgrade and Moscow and appease them. That is why nothing depends on them. Unfortunately. And that is why change is only possible from the outside. And it is not in sight because Russia is increasingly resembling North Korea, and Serbia is resembling Russia. It turns out, we will be squinting for a while longer.
Bonus video:
