On Tuesday, the European Parliament (EP) issued a statement saying that the EP's Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) calls for joint efforts in Montenegro to achieve political stability and continue reforms.
It also states that the European parliamentarians are seriously concerned about the malign interference of non-EU countries, destabilization and disinformation campaigns aimed at influencing political processes and public opinion. The statement also notes that religious institutions can be used as a means of influence and "condemns any unjustified interference by the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) in this regard."
The statement came after a series of recent statements and actions by senior SPC officials in Montenegro that have fueled divisions in the already divided Montenegrin society.
Metropolitan Joanikije Mićović used the Easter holidays to begin a revisionist campaign in favor of glorifying the fascist war criminal and butcher Pavle Đurišić as a hero, martyr, and alleged protector of the Serbian underdog. On May 3, Metropolitan Joanikije continued his elegy for Đurišić in the village of Razboj near Lijevča Polje in northern Bosnia, at the site where Đurišić was captured in one of the last battles of World War II.
On Victory Day over Fascism, which Europe celebrates on May 8 and Serbia and Montenegro still on May 9 (Soviet time), a proclamation was issued by another diocese in Montenegro - Budimljan and Nikšić. On Saturday, June 7, a memorial service and liturgy for the repose of "fighters of the First and Second Durmitor Chetnik Brigades and victims of communist terror" will be held in the diocesan Monastery of Podmainsko, which will be officiated by Bishop Metodije Ostojić. On the poster published on the X network by DPS MP Ivan Vuković, a bearded Chetnik with a cockade and a machine gun can be seen in the upper right corner, and a black flag in the left corner.
The Serbian Orthodox Church celebrated the feast of St. Basil of Ostrog on May 12. This day is also the baptismal feast of Andrija Mandić's New Serbian Democracy (NSD). The feast ended with a procession in Nikšić, where Joanikije said that "St. Basil unites not only Herzegovina and Montenegro, but also all Serbian lands."
However, the fact is that this saint unites Christians much wider and further than the so-called Serbian lands. Both the metropolitan and the vast majority of those loyal to him gladly turn a blind eye to the letter of St. Basil of January 3, 1671 to Pope Clement X in which he calls him his master, holy father and supreme apostle whose throne he and his clergy worship.
Joannikije and Methodije are rewriting domestic history and attacking Catholicism and domestic communist terror and pitfalls. The two of them, at the same time, are paving the way for the restoration of communist criminals and the values of Soviet Russia. The press (except for Antena M) went unnoticed by the news that Metropolitan Joannikije consecrated the monastery church of the Holy Matrona of Moscow on October 5 last year in the village of Kovači in Grbalj (Kotor Municipality). The church was built in the Russian church-architectural style and is dedicated to the alleged saint Matrona Dimitrijevna Nikonova (1883-1952).
The Metropolitan said that Saint Matrona was a new saint and that she was "almost completely unknown to the general public." However, she was heard about during World War II "because she was already known to some as one who consoles...strengthens, and foresees" the future, explained Joanikije. Then the Bishop continued by saying that "it is said that Stalin also came to her to ask if the Germans would take Moscow, she gave everyone comfort and hope...".
Matrona was proclaimed a local saint of the Moscow diocese by the Russian Patriarch and KGB agent for many decades, Alexy II Ridiger, in 1997. She was proclaimed an all-Russian saint in 2004 under Vladimir Putin. In the Putinist narrative of the rehabilitation of communist criminals and mass murderers, primarily Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, a narrative was inserted about an alleged visit to Matrona in 1941 at the height of the German army's approach to Moscow. She supposedly replied to Stalin that "the Russian people will win, victory will be yours, of all those in power, you are the only one who will not flee Moscow". Narratives about her holiness have been reworked several times as part of manifestations of "church Stalinism" or "Orthodox Stalinism" in efforts to portray Stalin as "Orthodox" and a "good" ruler. Frescoes and icons were also made of Matrona blessing Stalin and Stalin hosting church leaders. The Putinist authorities even made a documentary about Matrona.
Since Putin came to power, all criticism of Stalin has been quietly extinguished, and so far the authorities have erected 114 monuments to the Soviet dictator and the bloodiest persecutor of the Christian church since the time of the Roman emperors. By the beginning of World War II, Stalin's authorities had closed or demolished over 30 churches and monasteries, arrested over 168 priests and monks, of whom over 103 were killed. 60 bishops were also killed. The number of believing lay people killed is measured in the millions. Stalin stopped the active persecution of Christians only when the Red Army found itself on the brink of disaster in the fall of 1941 and when it played the card of defending the homeland instead of defending communism.
Hieromonk Iov Gumerov, who in 1997 prepared the materials for the canonization of Matrona, stated that "there is nothing that could confirm Stalin's visit to her". The head of the Expert Group on Miracles of the Synodal Theological Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church, Pavel Florensky, pointed to the contamination of the narrative about Matrona with various superstitions and dogmatically dubious stories. Professor of the Moscow Theological Academy Alexei Osipov warned against Matrona's "blasphemous advice" that vomiting after communion is good because demons are expelled in this way. According to her, "they penetrate a person with the air when breathing, they live in the blood".
However, despite warnings that there was no evidence and that she did not meet the criteria for sainthood, Matrona was declared a saint by the church hierarchy (who are also agents of the Federal Security Service - FSB, the successor to the KGB) by order of the state security service. This saintly truth of Stalin's successors was also accepted by the bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro and Serbia. The top of the Serbian Orthodox Church also supported the Russian aggression against Ukraine. In the statements of servility to the Kremlin and the KGB Patriarch Kirill, in addition to the Serbian Patriarch Porfiry and the Bishop of Bačka Irinej, the Montenegrin bishops stand out in particular. In the summer of 2023, Methodius, without blinking, said that the re-Stalinized "holy Russia is the hope for the salvation not only of the Orthodox peoples, but of all of Europe and the world."
These two bishops are not alone in their declarations of love for "holy Russia". On 10 March, the chargé d'affaires of the embassy in Moscow, Aleksandar Obradović, stated at the international forum Balkan Dialogue 2025: Montenegro and Russia in St. Petersburg that while "standing at the heart of holy Russia... our two peoples are bound by something stronger than current politics, something more permanent than documents and agreements - we are bound by a common faith, a common sense of justice and honor". Obradović is reputed to be a cadre of Milan Roćen, the chief advisor to former state leader Milo Đukanović. Based on the documents and transcripts published so far, Đukanović's project of an independent (and mafia-like) Montenegro was directly and indirectly aided by the Putin government. On 10 May, Obradović clarified what faith, justice and honor he was referring to by publishing a picture of the monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky in front of Ljubljanka (the headquarters of the infamous state security) with the words "all of you are seen, all of you are seen by the space police".
It is as if he is still watching over Russia from heaven. Dzerzhinsky was the evil head of the famous Cheka – the forerunner of the KGB. Dzerzhinsky is considered responsible for the deaths of around a quarter of a million people and unprecedented brutality against the Orthodox Church and all opponents of Bolshevism. His monument was torn down by protesters in Moscow after a failed military coup in 1991. By order of Russian President Putin, a monument to this mass murderer and bloodthirsty Christian was re-erected on September 11, 2023.
In addition to remaining silent on the re-Bolshevization of Putin's "holy Russia", Joanikije and Methodius have also reinforced the narrative about the so-called St. Alexander Nevsky, whose busts (otherwise a gift from the Russian embassy in Podgorica) were consecrated in December 2023 in Nikšić and Andrijevica. Alexander Nevsky is the saint and patron saint of the Russian Federation's Land Forces. He is also allegedly the patron saint or votive saint of the Vasojević tribe, a narrative that the Serbian Orthodox Church has been pushing lately, although there has never been a single church dedicated to him in Vasojevići. In a sermon by Metropolitan Joanikije on September 12, 2024 in Lijeva Rijeka, it was explained why Alexander Nevsky is suddenly important for Montenegro. According to Mićović, Nevsky had "courage and wisdom and reason and readiness... to lead his people, to protect them from the Western Crusaders, who were about to overrun Russia". Methodius noted that Nevsky from heaven "protected the Vasojevićs from the invasion of Catholicism from Albania." During his lifetime, Nevsky was the Prince of Novgorod, and the Russian lands had already been overrun by the Mongols and Tartars, whose vassal was Alexander Nevsky.
"Similar challenges are recurring in our time," concluded the Metropolitan of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro.
Bonus video:
