The Prosecution has nothing objectionable in glorifying Đurišić: Criminal charges against Metodije dismissed for speech about a war criminal

The Bijelo Polje Higher State Prosecutor's Office has dismissed criminal charges against the Metropolitan of Budimlje-Niksic. The method, assessing that in last year's speeches in which he glorified the notorious Chetnik commander Pavle Đurišić there is nothing controversial.

From the institution he manages Katarina Kljajević "Vijesti" announced yesterday that they had opened cases against Metodije for the criminal offense of inciting national, racial and religious hatred, in connection with his speeches to Đurišić in the Podmalinsko monastery at the beginning of June last year, as well as two months later in the Berane village of Gornje Zaostro, where a monument to the war criminal was erected and then removed. Both criminal charges against Metodije were dismissed.

“Regarding the inquiry regarding the event of 7 June 2025 in front of the Podmalinsko Monastery, Šavnik Municipality, I would like to inform you that a case has been opened against the Higher State Prosecutor's Office. Lj. O. (Ljubiša Ostojić - Metodijev's secular name) for the criminal offense of inciting national, racial and religious hatred. After assessing the collected evidence, a decision was made to dismiss the criminal complaint," the response to the editorial board reads.

It is added that the same outcome was in the case of Gornje Zaostro.

"Regarding the inquiry regarding the incident in Gornje Zaostro, Berane Municipality, I would like to inform you that a case has been opened against Lj. O. for the criminal offense of inciting national, racial and religious hatred. Based on the evidence collected during the investigation phase, it was assessed that Lj. O.'s actions did not contain elements of the aforementioned criminal offense, and a decision was made to dismiss the criminal charges against Lj. O.," it states.

At the beginning of June 2025, at the Podmalinsko Monastery near Šavnik, St. Methodius said, among other things, that "since the end of World War II, a Tito-Ustasha coalition has reigned, committing genocide against the Serbian people," and that the Chetnik leaders Dragoljub Mihailović and Đurišić were “the first guerrillas to rise up against the fascists in Europe”, but that “the truths about them were later covered up with lies”.

He said that, among other things, they gathered because of the "great and greatest knights and heroes of World War II", and that the "greatest schizophrenia" of this area is that a monument to the "greatest monster", the leader of the People's Liberation Movement in World War II, was erected in Podgorica. Josip Broz Tito.

"And this in Podgorica, which once bore, unfortunately, his name, and to make the irony even greater on the Boulevard of Saint Peter of Cetinje, the one whose church on Lovćen was demolished by that monster and the grave of his nephew desecrated." Bishop Rada"...What schizophrenia it is to name a boulevard after Saint Peter of Cetinje, and to erect a monument to a monster there. That is the state and image of our state in which we live," Metodije said at the time.

The monument to Đurišić was erected on August 7 last year in Gornji Zaostr, and a day later it was unveiled by Metodije, with the Serbian national anthem played, while the statue was removed the same day in the afternoon. The illegal monument was then removed by locals after, as they claimed, “a prior agreement with the police”. Đurišić’s statue was then moved to a local church, and at the end of August of that year it was transferred to the dormitory of the Đurđevi stupovi monastery, after which it was lost.

While serving the liturgy in that Berane village, Methodius said that "there are few who were as inspired as Đurišić," adding that, "if the people wake up," a monument to that war criminal will also be in the center of Berane.

Those who came to remove the monument were, according to him, there "on orders from the Europeans."

"They don't need to act heroic over us according to the directives of those 'civilian', polished, well-washed, fine 'Europeans', who give them orders and send them here," he said.

The Diocese of Budimlje-Niksic has expressed its protest over the decision of the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Bijelo Polje to file cases against Metodije, stating that the metropolitan is "the target of some power centers that are monitoring his every step, every word."

The unveiling of the monument caused a stormy reaction in the public, especially after the attacks on the teams of "Vijesti" and "Pobjeda", which tried to record the removal of the statue of Đurišić by the residents of Gornji Zaostar.