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According to the SOC Constitution, the Serbian Patriarch must be elected no later than three months after vacating the throne. Until then, the guardian of the throne was, as a rule, the oldest metropolitan, today Dabrobosanski Hrizostom.
Patriarch Irinej passed away today at the age of 90. The news of Patriarch Irinej’s death came after 15 days of a tough fight with the corona virus, which the patriarch lost after his health suddenly deteriorated overnight between Wednesday and Thursday.
Currently, it is completely uncertain how long the Serbian Church will be without the patriarch, because the Kovid 19 flag calls into question the holding of the Assembly and therefore the respect of the provisions of the Church Constitution.
However, if not all bishops can travel to Belgrade, the current Constitution allows absent bishops to vote and can authorize other diocesan bishops to vote for them. But a bishop can be authorized by a single vote. To resort to this method of election, since the vote is secret, the bishops should show a high degree of trust among themselves.
As things stand now, generally speaking, the Serbian Orthodox Church is in a state of emergency because it was suddenly left without a patriarch, but also the oldest metropolitan, who assumes the position of guardian or guardian of the throne. In addition, the diocese of Valjevo, whose bishop Milutin passed away during the first wave of Kovid 19, was exercised, and all dioceses, that is, their bishops, must vote for the election of a patriarch.
After his death, Metropolitan Amfilohije was the guardian of the throne after the death of Patriarch Pavle. He presented the insignia of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church to Patriarch Irinej.
According to the rules of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the role of caretaker is assumed by the oldest metropolitan. At the moment, it is little known to the general public, Metropolitan Chrysostom of Dabro-Bosnia. According to the information, last night he left Sarajevo for the Belgrade Patriarchate. Next in rank is the Metropolitan of Zagreb-Ljubljana Porfirije.
However, the church government is also not in the “correct” makeup. The Synod has been operating in a state of emergency for months, because there was no Parliament and no new members were elected. As a general rule, two out of five change every year. Currently, the highest by ordination in the Synod is Bishop Irinej of Bačka. However, if there are no changes, and in extraordinary circumstances, the previous practice of the Serbian Church continues to be respected, regular ecclesiastical affairs should be administered by the vicar, the oldest metropolitan with members of the Synod.
The current situation in the Serbian Church, which is in fact a consequence of the Kovid 19 pandemic, is roughly compared to the state of war in the Church. Historically, the only conditionally similar situation was during World War II. At that time, the Church was left without several bishops and patriarchs.
The then patriarch Gavrilo (Dožić) of the Ostrog monastery was taken to the Dachau camp in Germany. It was completely extraordinary in the Church. Metropolitan Cetinje was under Italian occupation, but at that time Metropolitan Josif of Macedonia was in Belgrade when Bulgarian soldiers drove him out of Skopje. That was how he got the “role of patriarch” because he had no one else.
Although work has been done in recent years and changes in the church constitution have been announced, as well as actions regarding the election of the patriarch, this has not happened. The change in the choice of chief was supposed to reestablish this process in the way that at one point in their history, Serbian patriarchs were elected, by a simple two-thirds majority.
The current election was drawn in the 1960s, during the life of the German Patriarch. The first chosen patriarch was Paul and then Irenaeus.
Unlike the time when Serbia was a principality and a kingdom, and the state had a direct influence on the election of the patriarch, the process by which the Church separated from the state began after World War II. The secular government did not have the legal possibility to influence the election and proclamation of the Serbian patriarch, as well as other questions regarding the internal autonomy of the church.
In an expert article on how to elect patriarchs and metropolitans, Archpriest Staurophore Velibor Džomić writes that the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church has undergone several changes since 1931, one of which concerns the introduction of a system for electing patriarchs by lottery. It is chosen from among three candidates chosen by Parliament by secret ballot and an absolute majority. As it is said, the valid way of electing the patriarch in the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church protects the autonomy of the internal church in the best possible way.
The future patriarch can be chosen from among the active bishops who have led the diocese for at least five years. The choice of the patriarch is interpreted differently by the public as – the choice by dice, of the envelopes that are in the hat. All this is not true.
The Holy Spirit is invoked and then the list of names of the archbishops is determined, who have the right to be elected as candidates for patriarch. After the consecration, the oldest archbishop opens the vote for the first candidate. If none of the archbishops obtains an absolute majority in the first round of 50 percent plus one vote, the vote is repeated after the announcement of the voting results. And so on until the first candidate is chosen. If the candidate is elected in the first round of voting, his name is written on paper and placed in an envelope. In the same way, with an unlimited number of repetitions, the two remaining candidates are selected.
When the names of the three elected candidates for patriarch are obtained, envelopes with their names in the Holy Gospel are placed on the Holy Throne at the altar of the patriarchal chapel of Saint Simeon the bearer of myrrh. The Electoral Council invites one of the oldest archimandrites, exclusively the abbot of the monastery, to draw an envelope in front of the Holy See and the entire Council, with the greatest piety and honesty, and deliver it to the president. The president, the oldest archbishop by dedication, opens the envelope, takes out a note with the candidate’s name and reads the name of the newly elected Archbishop of Peja, Metropolitan of Belgrade and Karlovac and Patriarch of Serbia.
The envelopes with the names of the two remaining candidates are then opened. There is an obligation to keep all the material of the Electoral Council in the archives of the Holy Synod of Bishops. After the proclamation of the name of the new patriarch, the archbishops say that he is worthy, congratulating and congratulating, receiving a blessing from the newly elected patriarch. After that, the name of the new patriarch is announced to the people and state authorities, and the next day his enthronement is scheduled in the Belgrade Cathedral Church and later in the Pec Patriarchate Monastery as the former seat of the archbishops and Serbian patriarchs of Pec.
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Source: Blic
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