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Podgorica – The Church hopes to implement the results of the last referendum on the Freedom of Religion Act (which were the previous parliamentary elections) and relieve our society of new tensions, adhering to the principle of “the emperor of the emperor and God of God”. After that, I hope in God to give us the strength and the reason so that each of us, with respect, understanding and even cooperation when necessary, continue on our way, says Gojko Perović, rector of the Theological Seminary “San Pedro de Cetinje “in an interview for our newspaper. In Cetinje, answering the question of what the church expects from the future government, what it will ask in return and how it defends itself against the objection that it is the main staff member of Prime Minister Zdravko Krivokapić.
– It is not good for the state to “found” or reorganize churches, nor does the church need or benefit from dealing with the state administration. That is my true belief, so I would work against myself, my own ideals and values, if, God forbid, the hundredth part were true of what some people accuse me, who have obviously lost all contact with reality. It is not for me to judge why they lost it. May God help you.
How do you now understand the rebellion and dissatisfaction of the people who fought with dignity for months for their own freedom, that is, for their faith and sanctities and the realization of those demands through personal and systemic changes announced by the new government?
I would compare it to the biblical event of Israel’s exodus from decades of slavery in Egypt, when the social and political reasons for liberation were present or, as it is commonly said, accumulated, but the change occurred when God wanted it and in the way that He wanted it. it was comfortable. In Montenegro, it is not about a conflict between nations, nor about a war between Montenegrins and an external enemy, but about an internal conquest of freedom, civil liberation from the one-party government, unity … I think we have a citizen emancipated for the first time. Paradoxically, this citizen was created during a religious, ecclesiastical liturgy. And it was created right there and precisely because the individual in the liturgy was calm, peaceful, patient and convinced until the end of the victory of heaven, but also of the possibility of earthly justice.
The same people previously had many reasons to express their discontent: the proclamation of the hymn in which the verses of a war criminal were inserted, the expulsion of the Cyrillic alphabet, the Serbian language, the falsification of historical truths, the demolition and threats of demolish the facilities of the Metropolitanate de Montenegro y el Litoral, etc. . And lithium happened …
The previous government’s attempt to declare ownership of the church (and through it the reality of the church, the organization of the church and its order) overnight and unilaterally as state property was a blow to values fundamental. And not only about the values of believers and people who belong to the church, but also about the fundamental values of secular society. That is why Montenegrin citizens who are agnostics, atheists, members of other religions joined the liturgies or publicly supported them. Everyone knew that by defending the church and its rights, they were actually defending the Constitution. And the Constitution is a barrier against arbitrariness and arbitrariness. That is everyone’s meeting point, and that is the reason why, over time, those who were previously dissatisfied with some other injustices also joined the litigation …
You are Montenegrin, but also Serbian, as all the Orthodox of Montenegro felt from their entry into the books of existence until the appearance of the followers of Tito and Djukanovic. How do you explain that?
History and politics are a sequence of cause and effect processes. Let’s remember the wisdom of the ancient Greeks about how everything flows and everything changes. In that sense, I personally understand the phenomenon and the need for people to change their identity, that is, to build a different one in relation to the identity of their ancestors. To some extent, it is also a necessity to change the generation in which we all participate. When it comes to the collective national identity of Montenegrins, I have an understanding for those brothers, relatives and godparents who want to build it exclusively on the basis of state borders and the framework that comes out of passports, putting it in the background or canceling it completely the identity of the ancestors 100 years ago or more. years. For example, ethnic Germans work in Austria or Switzerland, Irish in the United States, Italians in Argentina, etc. All these are examples in which different ethnic groups fundamentally construct a state condition, a nationality. I would just like them to understand my commitment to tradition, authentic and Montenegrin, and not to consider my preservation of both Serbian and Montenegrin identities as any occupation or attitude that has less civil rights relative to their own. .
Hundreds of thousands of believers with their bishops and clergy swore and defended the sanctuaries of the Serbian Orthodox Church, that is, the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Litoral, with magnificent liturgies. Does Montenegro remember national assemblies bigger and more democratic than lithium in all Montenegrin cities?
The liturgies and church councils you speak of have picked up on the dangerous shortcomings of the Law of Religious Freedom. The parliamentary elections followed, which had precisely that issue as, one would say, the only or the most important in terms of citizens’ determination. And now all the actors in those elections confirm that previous litigation played a crucial role in the outcome of those elections. And if to that we add the data on the incredible citizen participation in extraordinary conditions, then I will agree with you that in the recent history of Montenegro no issue has had so much plebiscitary support and therefore so much legitimacy from citizens as the attitude that it should change the law.
Was it Milo Đukanović’s decisive mistake that he believed that he would create his own DPS church and therefore, in addition to the earthly one, also have some kind of “secular” power? Did Milo take Milo down with that?
You could say exactly that. No one was so wrong in this situation as the president of the state. It was allowed to make the subject of this law a matter of forcing resentment against citizens. I mean, he had the opportunity throughout 2019 to listen to and respect the position of the church as an institution, so he didn’t use it. He then had the opportunity to ensure that the church’s position is shared by the majority of the citizens of the state of which he is president. Nothing. As reasons that would suffice for a wise statesman to remind him that he is at the service of the citizens, and not the other way around, the President of Montenegro trains something of personal courage and principles. Well, the creation of a church by a secular state was normal for him, and peaceful and dignified liturgies were a “mad movement.” Everyone was clear that he was not a good judge, except himself. But it is the result of a policy that created a system in which everything depends on one man.
Will Montenegro, after the first democratic change of government, go back to look for its master, as the former king of Montenegro and Brda had already proclaimed?
That is exactly what, as a citizen of this country, I appreciate that we have received as a new quality. It is not just our luck that the one-party government has been replaced and that the government has proven changeable, but that the new government is voting in an atmosphere where no one supports it in advance. There is hardly any party in office or opposition that has not presented any criticism or warning of the prime minister’s speech, that is. the current prime minister and his government. So, in that sense, I think we are relieved of the future cult of personality. May worship return to where it belongs: to the temples where we invoke the name of God, and may work, order and discipline return to the state administration, as Krivokapić said.
Do you think these people will really accept your message that “the embassy of the future celestial kingdom is a church”?
It was a pictorial way of expressing my secular conviction. The belief that the church is not of this world. That it does not belong to any state, and that the current parliamentary opposition describes the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro as a “church of the state of Serbia”, that is, a “foreign state”, ridiculous, historic and sad. The only state to which the church truly belongs and without remnant is the state of the kingdom of heaven. Everything else is temporal and earthly, and what our people would say: stories of reason.
Montenegrin society is deeply divided. Can the church bring distant brethren closer, as Christ teaches us?
Only in this way. Based on this statement about the kingdom of heaven. And I did not make up that statement to “calm passions” or “stain someone’s eyes” … it is a fundamental statement of church life. The apostle Paul says that Christians “do not have a safe city in this world, but we wait for the (city) to come.” Here, brothers can reconcile themselves to that faith, while even the most born always quarrel over earthly furnaces and hums.
Church property belongs to the church, not the state
The new opposition complains that the amendments to the Law on Religious Freedom will transfer the cultural heritage of Montenegro to the property of the Serbian state, through the Serbian Orthodox Church, which, they note, is registered in Serbia. It’s okay?
It is an absurd and dramatic lie that points to a deliberate and planned deepening of divisions! Regardless of in which countries in the region and in the world the Serbian Orthodox Church is registered or registered (as an ecclesiastical organization that spans all the meridians of this planet), it is a matter of establishing our internal Montenegrin legal order, in accordance with the Constitution and previous laws.
Church property in Serbia does not belong to the state but to the church. Even in Serbia, the state cannot confiscate church property and declare it its own, so how could it do that with church property in Montenegro? It’s invisible nonsense.
At the same time, all the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro is directed to its dioceses and monasteries whose headquarters are located in Montenegro and there are no pedals (except for exceptions that do not refer to the sacred buildings themselves) owned by the church belonging to an address outside of Montenegro. This is a notorious truth that destroys and renders senseless the hateful ideology that the former ruling party fabricates with its media agents. In their ideological madness, they want to present an internal social and legal problem of Montenegro as a war of states or a war of worlds.
What is the alternative?
The only alternative to this are civilized amendments to the law, which remove legal property issues from the issue of freedom of religion and thus point to the procedure of discussing property issues before the Montenegrin courts of compliance with Montenegrin law, and not making noise. streets and a review of history, which maintains the atmosphere of a jungle or forest, not an orderly state.
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