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This is how Archbishop of Cetinje and Metropolitan of Montenegro Amfilohije Radović (83) viewed his own life and the scale of personal values during his lifetime. While living, with the gospel in his hands and prayer in mind, the day before the feast of the rest of Saint Peter of Cetinje, Metropolitan Amfilohije passed away yesterday at 8.22 at the Montenegrin Clinical Center in Podgorica, where he was treated. for the consequences of the crown.
A unique and unrepeatable person of Serbian and world theology and spirituality, restorer of the church in Montenegro, monk and poet, heir to the former Montenegrin bishops, guardian of the Pec throne of church leaders, he left a deep mark among the Believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, citizens of Montenegro, Serbia, Republika Srpska. and throughout the Christian universe.
The news of the death of Amfilohije was announced yesterday morning by the Metropolitanate de Montenegro y el Litoral. The statement affirms that the Metropolitan fell asleep in the Lord in peace, after receiving the Holy Sacrament of Communion. He was given communion by the priest of Podgorica, Branko Vujacic, and by his bed until the end was the hieroglyphic Justin (Mrenovic), a brother from the Cetinje monastery.
“It’s over,” with the last breath, the bishop told his cellmate.
Bishop Amfilohije was admitted for treatment on October 6. Doctors from the Podgorica Clinical Center informed the public that his condition was stable, with signs of recovery. On Thursday, however, it deteriorated considerably. Doctors have determined the presence of air in the mid-thorax or pneumomediastinum, which often occurs in patients with sensitive lungs in inflammatory processes and in oxygen therapy.
KOSOVO WAS HIS DISGUSTING COURT
KOSOVO is our student, our heart, the heart of our heart, our holy city of Jerusalem and we, as our souls and destinies, cannot give it up. This is how the now deceased Metropolitan Amfilohije spoke about Kosovo and Metohija, a topic that he placed at the center of his intellectual and pastoral work.
His work and vision of the world were inextricably linked to Kosovo. For him, the southern province of Serbia was not just a part of Serbia, but an indivisible part of being Serbian. Everything he thought and said about it was in the spirit of Montenegrin epics and popular philosophy, following and referring to Njegoš’s verses about the “ugly court”.
He affirmed and demonstrated that the Kosovo pact is the spiritual backbone of Montenegro, which no one has the right to bend under the burden of national and global pressures.
– The time of those who renounced Lazarus of Kosovo and their commitment to the eternal Kingdom of Heaven is passing and we all return to Kosovo again. Those who renounced Kosovo, spat on the bones, the graves of these martyrs here and throughout Kosovo at Gjakova, who in 1912 fought for God, for God’s truth and justice, for freedom – said Amfilohije.
His connection to Kosovo and Peja as the centuries-old seat of the Serbian patriarchs, whose guardian of the throne he was, was not demonstrated in words alone. He partially confirmed this, especially during the 1999 and 2004 war, during the March pogrom. During and after the conflict with the Albanian terrorists in Kosovo and Metohija and the NATO bombing, he searched for the bodies of the dead and buried them for weeks, caring for and helping those who were left homeless. Until the last minute, he considered that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence by the official Podgorica was a betrayal of Njegos, Petrovic, the past and the future of Montenegro.
It turns out that this complication led to a fatal outcome: the metropolitan closed his eyes forever, thus monitoring the Serbian people from Kosovo to South America for decades. Aware of the gravity of the illness that oppressed him, as well as the entire world, he sent messages of consolation and vital inspiration from his sickbed.
– Such sufferings remind us of human dignity, eternal and imperishable. Man is a creature created for eternity, not for transience and nothingness. God reminds us that death is not the last word of this life, but only a preparation for the imperishable – for the eternal Kingdom of the God of love – the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In that name, I greet and bless all those who care about my health, asking them to take care of the health of all those who suffer, not only in Montenegro, but throughout the world – is the message of the Metropolitan’s last sermon held in his sickbed.
A man of rarely rich biography, education and Renaissance breadth, devoted to the words of the Gospel, the metropolitan Amfilohije was a clergyman and archbishop who never left anyone indifferent. With his influence and reputation, especially among the people, constantly celebrated and attacked, Bishop Amfilohije is a person who has become a cornerstone of recent history: the Montenegrin grandfather and his believers.
Risto Radović’s earthly march began on Christmas Day 1938 in the village of Bare Radović in Gornja Morača, where he was born as the fifth of fifteen children of Ćira and Milena Radović. The first knowledge acquired in the Morača monastery, during the difficult atheistic post-war period, he spread in Belgrade, and later in Paris, Bern, Rome, Athens … During his seven-year stay under the auspices of the Church Greek Orthodox, received a monastic vow and became a monk to Amfilohije in Athens.
A great step in his rich life came in 1985, when the Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church elected him Bishop of Banat. Five years later, he was enthroned as bishop of the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Litoral devastated by the communists. During the three decades of renewal of spiritual life, the Metropolitan managed not only to return alienated and quarrelsome people under the auspices of the Church, but also to renovate hundreds of abandoned churches and monasteries, and even build more impressive places of worship throughout. Montenegro.
Metropolitan Amfilohije of the 1980s is remembered as a fierce opponent of communism and a fighter for the return of our people to their roots. In the following difficult and gloomy decades of war, he was a critic of Slobodan Milosevic’s policy, but also an inescapable authority in the new post-Yugoslav space. The Metropolitan spent the first decade of the 21st century in a strong push for church building, but also in the struggle to strengthen the position of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro.
Carrying the cross of Christ on the Balkan cliffs, the metropolitan trampled on the sharp stones of criticism, more or less well-founded condemnations and open attacks. Opponents accused him of inciting war and nationalism in the 1990s, and criticized his attitude toward abortion and gay rights. He was criticized because he received Zeljko Raznatovic Arkan at the Cetinje monastery in 1991, but also because he decorated Vojislav Seselj.
He was often gruff and immoderate, which he himself was able to admit. The curses, which he justified by the ancient tradition of the Montenegrin bishops, were not alien to him. He was criticized for his words at the funeral of Zoran Djindjic, although he repeatedly explained that the message “whoever waves his sword will die by the sword” was not sent to the late prime minister, but to his assassins.
The last years of his earthly life were marked by an open conflict with the Montenegrin regime over the identity of the Serbian people, the status of the Metropolitanate de Montenegro-Primorje and the dioceses of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and an open state campaign against the church. He took the lead in lithium, which opposed the so-called The Law of Religious Freedom, and in the elections, called on citizens to vote against the regime, which was probably the balance that overthrew the government of Milo Đukanović of three decades old.
They detained and interrogated him, and he said: “I am responsible, judge only me.”
The Metropolitan spent his earthly life modest and monastic. Everything he won, he won for the Church. His only assets were books and dozens of pairs of old shoes, which he broke while walking through Montenegro and its trails.
Amfilohije left this world, Montenegro and the Serbian people, with a legacy of the obligation to fulfill the last will of the bishop and poet Petar Drugi Petrović Njegoš, to rest in the Lovćen chapel. Like his predecessors, the Metropolitan swore to his faithful people not to give up the effort that should restore dignity and the Christian image to Montenegro.
– My soul will have no peace until Njegos dreams his eternal dream again in the place he chose: in the chapel of Jezerski vrh. That is my legacy, the last will and oath of the people of Montenegro – said Amfilohije.
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