Regarding the text "The Patriarch has no one to write to", authored by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nikola Šaranović, Vijesti, 22. 1. 2026.
In the News of January 22nd, Dr. Nikola Šaranović published Text entitled "The Patriarch has no one to write to". In it, he explained the issue of the autocephaly of the CPC well, but he drew a wrong conclusion from some wrong assumptions. He claims that both churches - Montenegrin and Serbian - were Serbian Orthodox and the Peć Patriarchate churches. And the adjectives "Montenegrin" and "Serbian" in the names of these churches were not folk designations, but terms that denote the local character - one church in Montenegro and the other in Serbia.
The Montenegrin Orthodox Church draws its spiritual juices and roots from the first ancient Christian communities. The first known bishop from the Montenegrin territory was Evander of Doclea (ancient Doclea). In 451, he participated in the Council of Chalcedon and signed the symbol of faith, which connects Montenegro with the world shaped by the Christian faith embodied in the decisions and symbol of the Council of Chalcedon. At the time of Justinian's Reconquista, in the 6th century, which was a magnificent expression in architecture, the remains of which have been preserved to this day and testify to Justinian's great idea, only in the territory of Montenegro is it endowed with the remains of a bridge of monumental dimensions that bridged the Morača near Podgorica, material layers in all coastal cities and basilicas on the estates of rustic villas. In Ulcinj, Svač and Bar, the remains of basilicas from Justinian's time (6th century) have been identified. Villas dating from the 4th to 6th centuries have been excavated at the sites of Kruče, Mirište and Buljarica, which were destroyed during the invasion of the Slavs and Avars in the 7th century. In Budva there is a large three-nave basilica with a transept from the 6th century, also destroyed in the 7th century. A baptistery from the 6th century was found in Lastva Grbaljska. A basilica from the 6th century, built on the foundations of a late antique villa, was excavated at Prevlaka. Remains of basilicas that existed during the time of Justinian have been found in Kotor, Žanjice, ancient Dokleja, Martinićka Gradina and Vranovići.
Typically, Justinian's ecclesiastical administration of the Byzantine rite, today we would say Orthodox, followed the civil one and permeated not only Duklja but all of Dalmatia. Less than a century later, around 620, the Slavs and Avars invaded and settled the area of Duklja and all of Dalmatia and removed Byzantine rule, which was restored only after more than two centuries, in the second half of the 9th century. Some two hundred years later, around the middle of the 11th century, Byzantine strategists Constantine Diogenes and Theophilus Eroticus are mentioned in Duklja.
In the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja, written in the second half of the 12th century, in Chapter XXXVIII we read that the founder of the Vojislavljević dynasty, Vojislav, raised an uprising against Byzantium, among other things, inciting the people to revolt by asking "Why do you endure such great evil from the Greeks?" The uprising was successfully ended. The Byzantine army was defeated in two major battles: in 1040 in an unknown area in the Zeta region and in 1043 in the Battle of Bar. The country was liberated from Byzantine rule, after which Vojislav was included among the friends of Rome - the Byzantines. However, centers of Byzantine spirituality - monasteries - remained in the area of Duklja. They are mentioned by Pope Alexander II, who in 1067 wrote to the Archbishop of Bar, Peter: "...and monasteries, both Latin and Greek or Slavic curiae, so that you may know that there is one Church in them all, and that you govern all the aforementioned places in an episcopal manner."
The existence of Greek monasteries, twenty-two years later, was confirmed by Pope Clement III. In 1089, he awarded the pallium to Bishop Peter of Bar, designated him as suffragan bishops, and subordinated "amnia monasteria tam Dalmatinorum quam Graecorum atque Sclavorum". Pope Callistus, between 1119 and 1124, confirmed to Bishop Elias of Bar the jurisdiction and right to govern "monasteries, both Latin, Greek, and Slavic". After around the middle of the 12th century, Duklja/Zeta again found itself in a vassal relationship with Constantinople, the Byzantine governor of Duklja and Dalmatia, Kir Izanak, attended the consecration of the new Kotor Cathedral of Saint Tryphon in 1166.
Around 1219, Saint Sava of Serbia annexed Greek churches and monasteries, that is, Orthodox ones, by force removing the Byzantine presbyters, establishing the Zeta bishopric and placing it under the dynastic function of the Nemanjićs, who patronized the cult of Stefan (Simeon) Nemanja. In the Zeta area, the cult of Saint Vladimir of Duklja was an obstacle, so Byzantine monks and presbyters from Epirus, under threat of being burned for this reason, took his relics from the monastery of Prečista Krajina in Krajina to Elbasan around 1215, and placed them in a Byzantine church, around which the monastery of Šin Đon (Saint John) was later built.
FOUNDATION OF THE CPC AND THE UNION WITH ROME
On Byzantine spiritual foundations, the Montenegrin Orthodox Church was founded by Ivan Crnojević in 1484: "And I enclosed a temple in a place called Cetinje, in glory and praise of that Lady and Mother of God, in the name of her Nativity. And I built a monastery for the repose of monks there, and I called it the Metropolitanate of Zeta, if it pleases the gracious Lady. And I appointed there Metropolitan Visarion of Zeta, who was at that time, to rule over all, and after him his successors." Visarion's successor, the Montenegrin Bishop Maradarije, as the patriarch of the autocephalous Church, on September 28, 1640 according to the old calendar, or October 8 according to the new calendar, in the Monastery of the Presentation of the Holy Virgin in Maine near Budva, on seven sheets of paper, signed the union with the Roman Church. He wrote the confession of faith in his own hand according to the prescription of Pope Urban VIII and the Congregation for Propaganda, signed and sealed the document.
Venice and Rome had no interest in supporting the Montenegrin struggle for independence, so around 1713, Bishop Danilo Šćepčević Petrović changed the church-political axis, directing it to flow towards St. Petersburg instead of Rome.
The Serbian Church tried to subjugate Montenegro several times. The following year, in 1714, the Patriarch of Peć, Mojsije Rajović, during the campaign of Numan Pasha Ćuprilić that year to Montenegro, who burned the Cetinje Monastery on that occasion, wrote to the Duke of Čevje, Vukot Vukašinović: "that the Montenegrins submit to the happy Sultan, and if you do not obey, I will order in all my jurisdiction that the Lord God will search you". On 22 December 1721, the same Patriarch Mojsije wrote a letter to the people of Podgorica in which he called the Metropolitan of Cetinje a wretch and a schismatic who had been overthrown by the Sultan and that he could not be his friend in any way. The Montenegrins knew that in ancient times Byzantium ruled the territory of Montenegro and practiced the Byzantine, or Orthodox, church rite. At the request of the Russian Tsar and the Synod of the Russian Church, which requested the Montenegrin and Highland Principalities to send Saint Peter of Cetinje to the church court in Petrograd, they were answered, among other things, through Count Ivelić: "Furthermore, when we received Christianity in those ancient times, we received it not from the Russians but from the Greeks, as was the case in Russia". They clearly made it known to the Russian Synod that they were also an autocephalous Church, as it is written, because "we do not intend to be Russian subjects like its citizens, and we will protect our freedom, which our ancestors provided for us, to the utmost limits, and we would rather die with the sword in our hands than surrender to the vile slavery of any power".
After the fall of Venice in 1797, Dalmatia came under Austrian rule. With the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, the French removed the Austrian administration in Dalmatia and established a separate Orthodox bishopric for Dalmatia, and within it, in 1810, a separate "grand vicarage" for Boka. After Dalmatia was returned to Austria, fearing Russian influence, Emperor Francis I on December 29, 1828, handed over the entire Dalmatia, including the canonical territory of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church from Herceg Novi to behind Kastel Lastva, or Petrovac, to the Karlovac Metropolis (Serbian Church) for administration. Ninety years later, for the second time, by force of the Serbian sword, in 1918, the Montenegrin Church annexed only a part of the clergy and spiritual competence on Montenegrin territory to the Serbian Church. Churches and monasteries remained the property of villages, brotherhoods, tribes and the state. It was like that until the DPS and SDP came to power, when the illegal transfer from the Montenegrin state to the Serbian Church, indirectly to Serbia, began.
We conclude that the Byzantine, or rather, Orthodox church rite was practiced in Duklja during the time of Justinian's Reconquista, from the middle of the 6th to the beginning of the 7th century, then during the time of renewed Byzantine rule, in the second half of the 9th century, until the beginning of the 13th century - a total of about 300 years. By the Charter of Ivan Crnojević, the baptismal certificate of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church issued to the Cetinje Monastery on January 4, 1484, the Byzantine church organization was restored under the name of the Metropolitanate of Zeta, which covered the territory of the Montenegrin coast, Old Montenegro and the seven hills (Ivanbegovina). The CPC, as an autocephalous and Montenegrin, was arbitrarily in union with Rome for between 60 and 70 years. Only after the country found itself under the high protection of Russia was the union dissolved. So that the act of Francis I of December 29, 1828, destroyed the national unity of the inhabitants of Montenegro and the Montenegrin coast, and the CPC was deprived of the coastal territories from spiritual competences (Boka, Grbalj and Paštrovići). Otherwise, all the pastors of the Montenegrin Church were autocephalous heads who received a helping hand mainly from the Russian Church in Petrograd. And it is Montenegrin in its essence and content and is a deposit of Montenegrin tradition and culture.
This is evidenced by every stone of our churches and monasteries and all the clergy throughout history who, with the cross and sword, led the Montenegrins in the fight for freedom. None of them mentioned Saint Sava or the Patriarchate of Pec, and some bishops did not even mention Christ (Peter I and Peter II). Elements of Serbian spirituality within the CPC were interpolated during the time of Prince and King Nikola, the time of biblical poverty in Montenegro, which was supplied with textbooks and icons from Serbia and represents a foreign body. Because Orthodoxy in Montenegro is authentically Montenegrin and its organic part. It was rooted about 1500 years ago.
So the Montenegrin Church is not Serbian Orthodox and Peć Patriarchate as Dr. Šaranović claims, but Duklja/Zeta/Montenegrin Orthodox and Cetinje Bishopric. A different interpretation is politically motivated, with the aim of making Montenegrins a foreign national body through the Serbian Church, displacing our national roots from Montenegro and taking root in Kosovo, and re-annexing Montenegro to Serbia.
Bonus video:
