The secret was revealed on March 27, 1941, and who declared that Orthodoxy was the greatest curse in Europe!

Patriarca Irinej, Photo: AP Photo / Darko Vojinovic

The Croatian publicist, journalist and theologian Drago Pilsel published today two letters which he claims were once entrusted to him for publication by the Serbian Patriarch Irinej, and which the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church sent to Pope Francis on the canonization of the archbishop Croatian Lodging Stepinac.

Pilsel, who previously stated that he gained the patriarch’s trust and was “the first journalist to receive letters from the Holy Synod to Pope Francis,” claims that Patriarch Irinej “asked” Pope Francis to drop the subject of Cardinal Stepinac’s canonization. from the agenda and leave it unmistakable. God’s judgment.

Pilsel cited this as an explanation for President Vučić’s statement at Patriarch Irinej’s funeral, that the late patriarch “assured Pope Francis that Stepinac was not a saint.”

“That is, Patriarch Irinej could not and did not want to judge what only God makes his judgment about,” says Pilsel, adding that the question is what it means to be, from the Church, a canonized saint.

“A saint is one who can and should be a milestone for the universal Church, for all Christians. Lodgings Stepinac, with all his life, can hardly become that,” Pisel said, adding that it is not important for the Pope. Francis how much a Croat advocates a problematic canonization. the truth that both Serbs and Croats should speak together is respected.

And not just about Stepinac, but, as he says, also the truth about our troubled ecumenical, interethnic and interethnic relations.

In the text published on the Croatian portal Autograf, Pilsel says that he owes the publication of two letters from Patriarch Irinej to the Patriarch himself.

As he says “to a man whom I respected, whom I considered a brother in Christ and who always received me with great affection and love.”

In the first letter of April 30, 2014, Patriarch Irinej to Pope Francis “for the sake of the truth draws attention” that the Serbian Orthodox Church is obliged to say that Cardinal Stepinac unconditionally supported the creation of the NDH, praised its leadership and participated in creating an atmosphere of intolerance. in that state, as he stated, “copies of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy.”

It notes that Stepinac declared the “very significant coup” of March 27, 1941, when Yugoslavia seceded from the Triple Alliance, “a betrayal of which it accused the Orthodox Church,” and declared Orthodoxy “the greatest curse in Europe. “and registered those same words. in his diary immediately after the fatal events that would lead Yugoslavia to war.

Noting that only such an attitude towards the Orthodox Church can explain Stepinac’s attitude towards the forcible transfer of Serbs to the so-called NDHs to the Roman Catholic faith, the Pope’s patriarch also writes about the Khodox death camp and other camps which, like he said, they apparently turned the then NDH “into a slaughterhouse.”

It also draws attention to the fact that Cardinal Stepinac did not protest, but kept silent when it emerged that “the Nazi Ustasha regime sent three Orthodox bishops, hundreds of Orthodox priests and monks and hundreds of thousands of Orthodox believers, their fellow citizens , to death in the most horrible way. “

Stepinac was silent, writes the patriarch, even when the Croatian Ustashas, ​​among others, tortured and killed Orthodox Serbs who, under the threat of force, had already accepted the Catholic faith and in the face of the fact that in “their” state they were cold-blooded, planned, and systematic. children of “undesirable” citizens of that country – Serbs, Jews, Gypsies – were also killed

“It is estimated that the total number of child victims in the so-called Independent State of Croatia is around one hundred and thirty thousand, of whom only about 35 thousand in the Jasenovac death camp.

The patriarch pointed out to the Pope that the names and surnames of a part of the victims’ children (74,762 of them) were collected and enumerated, most of whom (42,791 of them) were children of Serbian Orthodox families.

The Jasenovac camp alone took the lives of 20,545 children.

Citing other examples, the patriarch points out in the letter to the Pope that Stepnac is too often portrayed as a helpless and isolated individual, and that it is known that he was personally the head of the military vicariate of the so-called armed forces. NDH, whose clergy were mostly involved in crimes committed by the armed forces and so-called countries.

The patriarch asked the Pope to understand that this silence of Stepinac – in addition to all the above – made his memory at this moment, as he himself affirms, not stand out from the biblical roots, nor is it a path of reconciliation when deals with the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

“On the contrary, we fear that there are too many open questions and unhealed wounds that Cardinal Stepinac symbolizes, and his canonization would only deepen the existing wounds and differences,” the patriarch wrote, asking the Pope to dedicate himself to “sober and wise consideration. of Stepinac’s place in history. ” especially if it’s loaded with Jadovno and Jasenovac. “

In another letter, dated July 10, 2015, Patriarch Irinej Papi writes that the SOC Parliament gladly accepted the Holy See’s proposal to form a working group of the Roman Catholic Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church, which it would consider all open questions related to Stepinac’s activities.