The regular May session of the Holy Bishops' Council of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) is just around the corner, and is set to begin tomorrow with the Holy Bishops' Liturgy and the invocation of the Holy Spirit in the large St. Sava Temple in Belgrade's Vračar, the Belgrade newspaper Danas has learned unofficially from high church sources.
On the official website of the Serbian Patriarchate, until the conclusion of yesterday's edition of that newspaper, there was not a word about the spring session of the "church parliament", as the highest church-legislative authority and the highest hierarchical body of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The working part of the Assembly is planned to be held in the crypt of the St. Sava Temple, to which Patriarch Porfirije (Perić) moved the Assembly sessions from the Patriarchal Palace since he was elected the 18th head of the Serbian Orthodox Church there on February 2021, 46. According to Danas' sources, the May Assembly should last three working days - Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, while on Saturday, Serbian hierarchs should serve the traditional memorial service for the founders and contributors of the St. Sava Temple.
Were the previous multi-day, sometimes marathon councils presided over by Patriarch Pavle and his first successor on the throne of Saint Sava, Patriarch Irinej, ineffective or does the speed of work of the current, by number of members, ever larger council of Serbian bishops owe, as is speculated, to already prepared decisions that the patriarch, according to the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church, first among equals, had already agreed upon with his spiritual father, Bishop Irinej (Bulović) of Bačka, writes Danas.
Both are considered the "right hand" of Andrić's crown prince and the current Minister of Culture, Nikola Selaković, who has previously been known from other state positions for interfering in church personnel policy.
There is speculation in church circles that the Patriarch and Bishop of Bačka, thanks to the uncritical and uncontrolled selection of vicars in recent years and their "adopting", but also the expansion of influence with the help of "services", currently control three-quarters of the parliamentary body. In fact, they are allegedly controlled by the Bishop of Bačka, including the Patriarch, which reduces the likelihood that their recent, for many reasons scandalous, visit to Moscow will be on the parliamentary agenda, writes Danas.
The newspaper states that after visiting the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, a flash Easter trip to Kosovo and Metohija (KiM) to the monasteries of the Patriarchate of Peć and Visoke Dečani, Patriarch Porfirije headed to Moscow on the second day of the greatest Christian holiday. The visit was announced on the SPC website under the "brand" of a doctorate that he was supposed to receive as part of inter-church cooperation with the Russian Orthodox Church, but it turned out that the head of the SPC was a "courier" for the President of Serbia who confirmed to Vladimir Putin that Aleksandar Vučić would be coming to the parade on May 9th on the occasion of the Victory over Fascism Day.
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The Kremlin has published a transcript of the reception of Patriarch Porfirije and Bishop Irinej of Bačka with the President of the Russian Federation. From it, the Serbian public finally learned the position of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church on the months-long student and civil protests in Serbia triggered by the collapse of a canopy at the Novi Sad railway station, which claimed 16 lives.
With the help of a "translator" for Russian - the bishop of Bačka - Patriarch Porfirije informed Putin that "a 'color revolution' is taking place in Serbia these days." The head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, who otherwise swears that "the Church is outside and above politics" and therefore does not receive Vučić's political opponents, also conveyed to the President of the Russian Federation, contrary to all diplomatic rules, the alleged words of the Patriarch of Jerusalem that the future of universal Orthodoxy lies only with "Vladimir Putin."
A group of students from Niš reacted to the disgrace in Moscow of Patriarch Porfiri, who was in Matica Srpska with the Bishop of Bačka on November 1, 2024, but did not visit the place where 16 lives were lost that day, Danas writes.
"Students are not enemies of their country, but defend the fundamental values of Orthodoxy: truth, justice, love, solidarity. We are its children. And when you call us 'imported revolutionaries', when you silence us, when you remain silent about our demands - you are not only betraying us. You are betraying the truth. You are betraying the Gospel. You are betraying the morality that you are supposed to protect. Just as Judas betrayed Christ, so you, patriarchs, have betrayed the students, the people and the truth," the students said, among other things.
Are the months-long mass protests of students and citizens of Serbia, among whom there are believers and who make up the parliamentary body of the Serbian Orthodox Church, a topic for the Assembly of Serbian Bishops? Will they raise the question of whose views Patriarch Porfirije presented in Moscow to foreign state and church officials, regardless of how sincere and close Russian-Serbian political and church relations are.
There is speculation in church circles that the Parliament does not have that power, but that bishops who have publicly supported the students or are known for being critics of the policies of the current Serbian president, who is rumored to be the patriarch's close relative "through the female line", could potentially be targeted.
Is Patriarch Pofirije, because of the alleged "cousin" from Andrić's wreath, really ready to "discipline" the brothers of the bishop whom he pressured to withdraw their signatures from an open letter, but which was not published on the SPC website due to the controversial text of Bishop David (Perović) of Kruševac, which was published on the same website, who then denied that he had insulted the students in the rebellion and called them "Serbian Ustashas".
The signatories of that protest letter: Metropolitan Joanikije of Montenegro and the Littoral (Mićović) and Bishops Justin (Stefanović) of Žič, Grigorije of Germany (Durić), Maxim (Vasiljević) of West America, Irinej (Dobrijević) of East America and Dimitrije (Rađenović) of Zahumlje and Herzegovina, had previously been in the disfavor of both the President of the Republic and the Bishop of Bačka.
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Bishop Grigorije even publicly took a stand against the months-long student protest, hosting academics in Germany during their bicycle tour to Strasbourg.
Between his words that "he who attacks students attacks Christ" and the Patriarch of Moscow's "colored revolutions", the Parliament, while respecting the right to freedom of opinion, but for the sake of the dignity of the Church, should at least balance the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church towards the current situation in Serbia without Kosovo and Metohija, which Vučić's words are exploiting for deeper political divisions among the remaining Serbs in the southern Serbian province.
There is speculation in church circles that at this moment the patriarch, apart from putting him on the "black list", has no effective measures against Metropolitan Joanikije, but that he is allegedly working to break the harmony between the spiritual children of the late Metropolitan Amfilohije (Radović) and Bishop Atanasij (Jevtić).
However, according to rumors, the first to be targeted could be Bishop Justin of Žič, the first spiritual child of the late Bishop of Raška-Prizren, Artemije (Radosavljević), who was excommunicated and expelled from the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Bishop Justin has also found himself in the media, especially on church social networks and websites, as the main scapegoat due to the problems that arose in the election of the abbot of the Studenica monastery. Due to the large number of monks, this foundation of Stefan Nemanja has the right to decide on its leader, and Bishop Justin has been "blamed" for imposing his "candidate", although at one point he used his right as the competent bishop to act as a temporary solution until the dispute over the abbot of Studenica is resolved.
In church circles, there is speculation that the former abbot of this medieval monastery, Tihon (Rakićević), who was elected as the patriarch's vicar as bishop of Moravica at the last May Council, is behind the "Studenica problem." Bishop Justin has already had a visit from the Patriarchate's financial control, as the Serbian Orthodox Church has been replacing unsuitable bishops for the past decade and a half, since the case of Bishop Artemije.
Danas sources estimate that this time there will be an attempt to divide the Žička eparchy, the largest in the Serbian Orthodox Church, so that Bishop Tihon can take over a part of it.
Apart from being from an (un)suitable spiritual school, Bishop Justin is (un)suitable also because of his disobedience to the current regime. It is also said that, if the division of the Žička eparchy does not pass at this Parliament, the control of the work of the Žička eparchy will continue, and at the next Parliament session it will receive an administrator. If these "plans" succeed, the same "model" would then be applied to Bishop Grigorij, whose vicar has allegedly resigned from this position in Germany.
Personnel solutions and diocesan boundaries
If unpleasant topics such as seriously addressing the situation in Kosovo and Metohija, the mass student and civil uprising, as well as covering up financial and inter-church unpleasantness in Austria are avoided, the Parliament should allegedly deal with new personnel solutions and the redrawing of diocesan borders.
There is a lot of talk about the alleged retirement of Bishop Jefrem (Milutinović) of Banja Luka, who is supposed to be "succeeded" by Vicar Bishop Sava (Bundalo) of Marčana, the establishment of new dioceses, which should be given either to the current vicars or to new bishops elected at this Assembly, for whom Vučić is allegedly "lobbying" through Minister Selaković. Among the speculations is the Patriarch's alleged plan to finally divide the Belgrade-Karlovac Archdiocese into three parts.
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