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Thousands of people attended the funeral of Patriarch Irinej, leader of the Serbian Orthodox Church, in Belgrade on Sunday. The 90-year-old archbishop died Friday of complications from a coronavirus infection. He fell ill after attending the funeral of Patriarch Amfilohije, an epidemic Montenegrin Orthodox Archbishop who was also infected with the coronavirus, on November 1, writes the MTI.
Like that funeral ceremony, Patriarch Irinej’s televised farewell was not followed by many in defense against the corona virus epidemic. Most did not wear a mask, did not keep sufficient distance from each other, and despite warnings, most kissed the coffin and the cross. Only a glass lid on the open casket prevented him from directly kissing the corpse of the patriarch who died of infection, just like Amfilohije’s funeral.
As expected, the majority of the priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church do not observe and abide by the epidemiological precepts during the liturgies: they continue to sacrifice with the same spoon and keep the cross kissed by all.
Patriarch Irinej, the first among the Serbian Orthodox leaders, was buried in the Church of Saint Sava in Belgrade. The new patriarch is expected to be elected by the church within three months, while the Orthodox Archbishop of Sarajevo, Hrizostom Jevic, will serve as head of the church.
The patriarchal election is as follows: the Board of Bishops (SPC) of the Serbian Orthodox Church elects three candidates for the position. The names of the candidates are placed on sticky notes in the Bible, on which the oldest archimandrite (head of the monastery) prays for a whole night. At dawn the next day, a note is drawn from the book of three, bearing the name of the new patriarch who is said to have been chosen by the Holy Spirit.
The result of the election of the party’s arch could be politically important for President Aleksandar Vucic, who was a serious ally of Patriarch Irinej, due to the close fusion of the Serbian state and the church.
Srdjan Cvijic is a Serbian political scientist living in Brussels. according to a quick scan the four most likely candidates:
- Monsignor Irinej Bulovic de Bács-Kiskun,
- Porfirije is a metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana (provincial leader of the church),
- Montenegrin Metropolitan Joanikije,
- and Grigorije, head of the local Serbian Orthodox government in Germany
the choice of the first and second candidates would be the best for Vucic, since his attitude is closer to that of the last, very close to the Russian Orthodox Church, the policy of the friendly Irinej.
The other two perspectives belong to the “opposition” wing of the Serbian Orthodox Church insofar as they are modernization parties and do not necessarily support the policies of the Serbian government, so they may cause some headaches for Vucic. Grigorije, for example, commented on the 1.7 million euro grant from the government in the midst of the epidemic to renovate the church of St. Sava in Belgrade, saying that he would rather “not have hospitals full of sick people while the churches are speechless” .
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