The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) had nothing to do with the elections in Nikšić, nor with the parties' election programs and calls to citizens, said the rector of the Cetinje seminary, Gojko Perović, and added that the church cannot join any party.
Perović told the MINA agency that identifying the church with any parties and political lists in the completed or any subsequent local or parliamentary elections in Montenegro is beyond all reason and out of touch with the truth.
As he said, the context of last year's parliamentary elections is clear and unrepeatable to everyone, and it is visible in the church's repeatedly repeated call to citizens not to vote for those who are politically behind the controversial former Law on Freedom of Religion.
"Even then, the SPC did not side with any of the lists, that is, each of the three lists that won the majority in those elections supported the church's fight against this bad law," stated Perović.
He said that the issue of style, form and dynamics of one's actions, as well as the promotion of one's own love for the church and tradition, determined citizens to vote or not to vote for someone.
Perović pointed out that the church did not form political parties, write the program, nor does it, in a secular society, have such power.
As he stated, in a certain historical and social moment, the need of the church and believers had an incredible degree of coincidence with the need and election program of some political lists and coalitions.
"Although the atmosphere of unforgettable litias is still present in the people, and I believe that it will continue to be present, the diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its clergy had nothing to do with the past local elections in Nikšić, with election programs, or with political appeals addressed to citizens." announced Perovic.
According to him, one of the reasons for this is the changed Law on Freedom of Religion in Parliament, and the other, much more important, is the vital need of the church not to be identified with a party or coalition.
"Even if there was an ideal party that brings together all citizens, and then the church would have the need to say that its program and its platform are broader and greater than any earthly politics," Perović pointed out.
He said that it is true that in the elections in Nikšić, among the leaders of the new majority, which outvoted the previous government, there are dominantly believing people, who do not hide their church affiliation.
"But they, as such, know best what it means when we say that they belong to the church, and that the church cannot be reduced to one of the parties." I believe that just as long as this is the case - the positive spirit of lithium will remain intact", said Perović.
He added that it is true that during the pre-election campaign, Bishop Joanikije welcomed the presidents of the Government and the Assembly in the Cathedral in Nikšić, that Serbian Patriarch Porfirije welcomed the leaders of the Democratic Front a few days before the elections, but that these are either the domestic response of the church pastors to the initiatives that their guests had, not the other way around.
"All of Nikšić knows that the Nikšić clergy was extremely restrained and completely on the sidelines in relation to pre-election, inter-party events. This, in the first place, was the reason for the great parish work in connection with the preparations for the Great Lent that had just begun. And it is precisely because of all this that I claim that the church cannot join any party, and its only leader is the Risen Lord God", emphasized Perović.
According to his words, any association of those events with the church's support for certain parties or the placement of media projections according to which the constellation of relations on the political scene represents relations in the church itself, is completely unfounded, inadmissible and does not correspond to the truth and the actual situation.
Perović said that media workers have the right to express their own perception.
"But everything that alludes to the existence of political divisions within the single church, and is marketed as such before and after the election, cannot be evaluated as rational and objective", said Perović and called on public officials not to treat the relationship of the church that way in the future. according to the political scene.
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