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All the Churches in Serbia tomorrow will be having special Moleban services for Kosovo. Please include Kosovo in your personal prayers, and perhaps do a prayer rope or two.
In Christ
Tessa

Саопштење за јавност Светог архијерејског синода

Communiqué
of the Holy Hierarchical Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church
Regarding the recent events in Kosovo and Metohija


The Holy Hierarchical Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church, at their special meeting held at the Patriarchate on February 17, 2008 brings the following public address for the local and international media regarding the latest events in Kosovo and Metohija:

As the Church has stated countless times in the past also now she states that Kosovo and Metohija was and needs to remain an integral part of Serbia, in accordance to the United Nations Charter, the Security Council decision 1244, as well as all other similar international conventions on human rights and the rights of a people and the protection of internationally recognized state borders. Any other decision represents a violation of Divine and human laws, as well as an assault with long ranging consequences, for both the Balkans and all of Europe. All internationally recognized and confirmed treaties, not annulled till now by any international act, beginning with the Treaty from 1913, the international decision from 1918 and 1945, to the decision of the Security Council 1244 from 1999, together with the recent reception of integral Serbia in the United Nations, affirms that the taking of Kosovo and Metohija from Serbian exemplifies a violence characteristic of periods of occupations and tyrannies, of which we had hoped that their time had passed in Europe and the world. In this particular case it represents a new legalization of the centuries-old Ottoman tyranny and its consequences on these territories, as well as a repetition of the application of a Fascistic solution (of Mussolini and Hitler) to the Kosovo question from the time of World War II, when Kosovo and Metohija were attached to the so-called Great Albania and when hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Serbs were expelled from their centuries-old hearths, as well as in 1999, with the goal that they never return their again.

Having said that, what deeply astonishes us is the fact that, according to the words of one American ambassador, with the now proclaiming and illegal recognition from governments of the United States of America, England, Germany, France, Italy, and others, of the self-proclamation of Kosovo – the bombing of Serbian and Montenegro is complete. Therefore, the supposed protection of human and minority rights of bombing, under the name of “Merciful angels” represented only a preparation for this final violation of justice and the gutting of Serbia’s heart from her bosom.

Thus, considering this proclamation of the independence of Kosovo as illegitimate, a violent act against justice, the Holy Hierarchical Synod and our entire Church, in hopes of a more sooner victory of God’s justice and true human rights, calls upon His Grace Bishop Artemije of Ras and Prizren, his clergy, monastics and the entire Kosovo-Metohija Serbian Orthodox people, as well as others in Kosovo jeopardized by this unjust act, to remain on their homesteads and with their holy sites, preserving peace and confidence in the final victory of God’s justice, having love towards everyone as it is fitting us. May they, in the words of the Apostle Paul, in these difficult times, as they have till now, especially in the Kosovo pain-enduring history, “commend ourselves as ministers of God: in much patience, in tribulations, in needs, in distresses…by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honor and dishonor” (2 Cor. 6:4-8). Let us always have before our eyes and in our hearts the victorious word of the true God: “Who endures to the end will be saved”.

We await from the United Nations and the Security Council that, in the spirit of their Charter 1244, as well as their international obligations, that they defend and protect this violation of human, religious and the state rights of the Republic of Serbia.