The forcing of the Chetnik ideology by the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) is a demonstration of their current power, thereby increasing division and discord, historians assessed for "Vijesti" Petar Glendža i Jakovina company.
Commenting on the latest commemorations and glorification of Chetnik leaders and war criminals, Montenegrin historian Petar Glendža says that the roots of such behavior can be traced back to the Second World War and, as he states, the general cooperation of the Serbian Orthodox Church with the Chetniks.
"As we could hear a few days ago, the champions of the Chetnik movement are for the SPC 'commanders who fought for the right thing', and therefore we can draw the conclusion that what they did, and I primarily mean the terrible crimes against the non-Orthodox population, there is justification for them," Glendža said.
Bishop of Budimlja-Nikšić Methods held a memorial service for Chetnik leaders on August 8 in the village of Gornje Zaostro near Beran, Pavlo Đurišić i Dear Draž Mihailović. After the memorial service, a celebration was held in which the participants wore Chetnik symbols and, according to recordings from the Mojkovački fantom Facebook page, the songs "Leleču Turki, kukaju bule", "Izvidnica, vividnica Pavlo Đurišić" were sung.....
That is why the Citizens' Initiative "21. maj" filed a criminal complaint against a certain number of persons who, as they stated, glorified the Chetnik movement and insulted them on the basis of national, religious affiliation and ethnic origin in the town of Zaostro, and the state prosecutor at the Higher State Prosecutor's Office in Bijelo Polje ordered the initiation of misdemeanor proceedings .
Previously, in June, the Montenegrin Littoral Metropolitanate in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Gornji Grblje marked the day of the death of the convicted war criminal Mihailović, the commander of the Chetnik forces during the Second World War.
A priest Mijalo Backović, who was the parish priest of Gornji Grbalje for the previous 13 years and served the memorial service for Mihailović, said then that the memorial service is held every year.
"Everybody knows that the people of Grbljan were 85 percent in the King's army, that's why their descendants have been paying tribute to all their ancestors for many years, most of whom don't even know the grave. The Church remembers all the innocent victims, regardless of which side in the war they participated in, and so on this day also these victims. The Church does not divide victims and does not judge, God will judge everyone according to their deeds", Backović said earlier for "Vijesti".
Croatian historian Tvrtko Jakovina told "Vijesti" that the SPC, like all churches, not only the national ones, is primarily a political organization, with its own ideology and preferences.
"When mass is celebrated in the Zagreb church in Palmotićeva Street Anto Pavelić, then it is a political message. Why don't all the priests go to Sutjeska, where there are few dead communists and thousands of believers, and they go to Blajburg? Because of the ideology they nurture", said Jakovina.
In the Austrian city of Bleiburg, until 2020, until the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, commemorations were held for members of the Ustasha formations, who were killed in that area after the end of the Second World War.
Jakovina believes that they are a Chetnik commander Nikola Kalabic and the Chetniks are only a Serbian expression of such a policy.
Glendža sees the SPC pushing Chetnik ideology as a complete deviation.
"So, you have a Christian, Orthodox church, which in this way propagates and promotes people and their ideology of an ethnically pure Greater Serbia, who committed terrible crimes without any hesitation in that name. That in itself is an incredible paradox, it's simply incomprehensible, unacceptable and goes against the elementary principles of Christian dogma, but also general values that, I guess, we should have adopted by the year 2022," said Glendža.
He believes that this is a logical sequence of events, given that the SPC is clearly not renouncing its ideological-political agenda, that is, a very plastic-Greater Serbian national policy.
"This practice has been alive since the Second World War, and the intensity of the manifestations is reflected in the strength of the SPC at a certain point in time, that is, in the ideological affiliation of the political system that creates the complete environment. Thus, in the socialist period, when the influence of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which affirmed some completely different values, was minimized, this practice was imperceptible. With the fall of socialism, the paradigm changes, so that since the '90s, we have increasingly been portraying the Chetniks as they are still represented by the SPC in Montenegro. And specifically, the latest actions of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its prominent representatives in Montenegro on that topic are, in fact, only a demonstration of their current power in this political setting of our society," said Glendža.
He warns that the consequences are the general radicalization and polarization of society.
"Which should be particularly worrying for our society, which is completely undeveloped, by which I mean institutions, general culture, enlightenment... Therefore, in such a society, if someone openly popularizes people who implemented very dangerous ideological guidelines, like those that Pavle Đurišić brought in the Instructions from the headquarters of Draža Mihailović (ethnically pure Great Serbia), then it only shows the direction in which he can take us", said Glendža.
The High Court in Valjevo also rehabilitates Kalabić
Mihailović was shot by the authorities of the Federative People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FNRJ) on July 17, 1946. Two days earlier, the Supreme Court of the FNRJ sentenced him to death by firing squad, permanent loss of political and civil rights and confiscation of all property, for treason, cooperation with the occupiers and numerous war crimes committed by the Chetniks he commanded.
Mihailović was shot in the vicinity of Belgrade, and his grave is not officially known.
In 2015, the High Court in Belgrade overturned the verdict by which Mihailović was sentenced to death. The court stated that the trial of Mihailović was a political-ideological process of the communist regime, as well as that the court panel was not competent to establish the facts of whether he was a war criminal.
On August 5 of this year, the High Court in Valjevo issued a non-final decision on the rehabilitation of Kalabić. The request for rehabilitation was submitted by his granddaughter Vesna Kalabić in March 2012.
The Metropolis does not single out those who were in the ranks of the partisans
The Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral would have a basis for a more sensitive and rational attitude towards the anti-fascist heritage because dozens of priests participated in the Thirteenth of July Uprising, and later in the partisan National Liberation Movement, although Metropolitan Joanikije Lipovac participated in the Petrovdan Council (1941), together with priest Simo Martinović. (a Montenegrin federalist), and a large number of priests died in the withdrawal of the forces that collaborated with the occupiers. Gavrilo Dožić, the former metropolitan of Montenegrin and Littoral and later patriarch of Serbia, was a fierce opponent of the signing of the Triple Pact with the Axis powers, he was imprisoned in the Dachau camp, and after a short exile, despite everything, he was invited by the new authorities to return to Yugoslavia .
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