The President of True Montenegro, Marko Milačić, in an open letter to the Patriarch of the SPC, Irinej, stated that "the people of Montenegro have already chosen their future Metropolitan" and that it is Bishop Joanikije of Budimlja-Nikšić.
"Beyond order and rules, the Metropolitan in the soul of this nation, the only one whom the people will follow, the only one whom the people will accept, after the death of their spiritual father," Milačić stated in an open letter.
The open letter that Milačić, a member of the Parliament of Montenegro, sent to Irinej is transmitted in its entirety.
"Your Holiness, you were with us in the most difficult day of modern Montenegro, one of the most difficult days of the entire Montenegrin history, together with us you surrendered the Metropolitan to God, you were a witness to how much Montenegro loves its Grandfather, how much God is alive in Montenegro.
We chose our battles, we walked towards heaven, we climbed and fell for the Cross, we were at gunpoint of those we did not see, we suffered so that Montenegro would be exalted, so that Orthodoxy would be even more exalted, they arrested us but that did not scare us, they imprisoned us but that didn't tire us, we looked at our father in heaven and their sons, Bishops, on earth, we swore to them, we swear by them to infinity to the most defiant, the most holy, ours, the Metropolitan's: We do not give the Saints!
And when we defeated evil, and Metropolitan Amfilohije and Bishop Joanikije defeated it more than us, because they suffered carrying their Cross and ours, when we breathed freedom in a country where everything looked like a prison, in a country from which the authorities of the whole century drove out God, when we conquered the world by faith, the best of us left.
Metropolitan Amfilohije paid for our struggle with his life.
He was defiant, a military leader of divinity, he looked at death as if it would never come, a leader of peace and love, he succeeded with God, the first, to lead up and get some more megdan for Montenegro.
Do you know, Your Holiness, we are now children without parents.
We are the orphans of victory, on the road without a shepherd, over the bier of Metropolitan Amfilohi, we found and still find peace only in the sight of one, for us now the only Bishop, Bishop Joaniki.
Peace for the future, for the Metropolitan's tomorrow, because our fight and victory, Your Holiness, could have been even more difficult, if that stray bullet from Belgrade a year ago had not hit Mr. Davidović's hand.
That he found what he was looking for, which God did not let him find, the head of Bishop Ioanniki.
With that fired, unsuspecting bullet, the lead of death that finds everyone except those whose path the bullet cannot find, Bishop Joanikije joined the ranks of the most persecuted in history after us, along with his namesake, Metropolitan Joaniki Lipovac of Montenegrin and Littoral, who received the same bullet, after that the killer's hands took away his episcopal robes and panagia, in order to soothe him in a faith that even death cannot soothe, and the history of these areas unwaveringly teaches us that.
History reminds us that no war defeated Jesus Christ, icons of immortality were created by our murders, the people celebrated and will celebrate their heavenly heroes, and we in Montenegro celebrate our Bishops.
Saint Metropolitan Amfilohi, eternal and endless Metropolitan of Montenegro.
Bishop Methodius, whose ribs were broken with the clubs of unbelief until unbelief was broken by the club of God.
And Bishop Joaniki, the indomitable, shot but not shot, arrested but not arrested Bishop of Đurđevi Stupov.
Few people know, Your Holiness, what it's like to be in prison, when they squeeze God with a dungeon, and he is even greater, in the darkness of a room without light or a clock, shining for the future and the hours that cannot pass by the imprisoned.
With the darkness of his dungeon, Bishop Joanikija touched the life of his predecessor, Metropolitan Joaniki Lipovac, and before that he touched him with the one he uttered at the Trojičindan Vow, with which he announced the never-before-seen struggle of the Cross with the non-cross, the struggle of peace and love.
Already then he announced his future.
Let's remember how we fought that day in Nikšić when he was arrested, how we gathered crying, defying armed men, surrounded by guns, how we called Bishop Joaniki in front of the building of the court-nothing, court-transient, when the freedom of our Bishop depended on the worst.
How sad was the injustice while on the wall of the police station, right next to armed and masked special forces, the father of freedom and a different world, father Arsenija, sits and prays, while he fears for his imprisoned Bishop, at the collision of history and the future of these areas.
We did not, Your Holiness, go through the year of Golgotha, we went through a whole century of hell in the year behind us. So they won.
We put our heads on the stump for a fight in which everything was uncertain, we spent our lives building a girdle around Vladik, in that fight we had only them. And they us. Help came from heaven, from Saint Peter of Cetinje and Mojsi Zečević, the tireless guardian of George's Pillars, whose Bishop Joanikije is the most worthy successor.
Heir by fighting spirit, rebellion of the disobedient, as Mojsije Zečević once walked in place of St. Peter of Cetinje when he was unable to walk in his old age, as Mojsije Zečević prayed, cursed and baptized for his Bishop, as he later preserved St. Peter with a bequest throne to Petar II Petrović Njegoš until Tajnovidac personally took it over.
Even today, Bishop Joanikije keeps everything of the Metropolitan, everything that he wore and everything that the people of Montenegro love.
The stake of our faith in the holy places is too great, Your Holiness, and our love for the Bishops is too great, especially our eternal love for Metropolitan Amfilohi and Bishop Joaniki. Defending the sanctuaries, we defended churches and temples, but more than that, we defended them. Bishop.
Our Bishops are our greatest saints.
While we have Bishop Joaniki with us, even Metropolitan Amfilohije is no longer dead, with his word the word of our holy Metropolitan rises, with his Cross the Metropolitan's cross also baptizes us.
One evening, in Đurđev Stupa, a few days before Metropolitan Amfilohije fell ill, I watched while we were having dinner together, how, like father and son, they cared for each other, those two nobles of the faith: While the Metropolitan was preparing to leave for Ćafa, Bishop Joanikije worried that he would be cold, he would catch a cold. Bishop Joanikije begged him, as his father's son, to put on woolen socks. The Metropolitan did not listen to him.
Perhaps he himself sensed what he was most afraid of, the departure of his Metropolitan, his brother and father, he was afraid, I know, he hoped that he would be with him for a long time.
With him in victory, with him in freedom as they were together in the prison of the past.
The way Patriarch Pavle and Metropolitan Amfilohije were next to each other.
In unbreakable love, which cannot be defeated today or tomorrow, let alone ordinary death.
The organization of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the election of the new Metropolitan of Montenegro has its own written procedure, but please know, Your Holiness, that the people of Montenegro have already chosen their future Metropolitan.
The future Metropolitan Ioanniki.
Beyond order and rules, the Metropolitan for the soul of this people, the only one whom the people will follow, the only one whom the people, after the death of their spiritual father, will accept.
We swore in that shrine, Bishop Joanikija had already redeemed his metropolitan way before heaven, he built a dungeon and then carried his new, same metropolitan cross.
Only such a cross will stand on the soul of this country, because the Serbian people love and accept only what is according to God's will. And that, Your Holiness, is Metropolitan Joanikije. Because God is only in the one whom the people choose.
For every future age and our future Metropolitan, in whose shadow of love the people of Montenegro will look for and find their Holy and inimitable Metropolitan Amfilohi," said Milačić.
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