for the serbian churchand the serbian orthodox people, kosovo, along with metohia,is holy serbian land. today, unfortunately,it is under occupation. his holinessthe patriarch of serbia irinej serbs are being expelled from there, despite how and in what waythis is done, all means are employed, and, unfortunately, this with assistancefrom many modern world powers. unfortunately, an aggression againstour country is now going on. we thought we would avoid itand yet it is happening to us,
but it seemsthat we are holding out well. this is a shame of world proportion. we didn't expect themto be so disrespectful, that they would be trying to punishour country in such a manner for things that we are not to blame for, and our will to confront themshould be even greater. if you are still in your apartments, and maybe there are some people who maywish to stay in their apartments, if you are idoor,you should turn off the lights,
shut water and natural gas supply, switch off all the thermal and electricappliances, put out your fires, open the windows and remove yourcurtains and put down your shutters. bring along with you everythingthat you had prepared earlier, water and other non-alcoholic beveragesin plastic, sealed containers, chronic disease medications,personal documents, money, personal hygiene kits anda towel or paper hankies, personal safety gear, transistorradio-receivers, flash-lights, etc. we cannot try to run awayvery much and get away,
what is essential isfor us to remain calm and collected, because if we remain so,we will also be braver and readier to resist all aggression and pressures. dear citizens, the aggression is over.peace has conquered violence. dear citizens,peace is here, good luck to us all. at this moment, our first thoughtsshould be dedicated to the heroes that had given up their lives for thedefense of the motherland, in the struggle for the freedomand dignity of our people. at the beginning of this year,
throughout our countrythere were many gatherings held. one slogan was dominant:we won't give kosovo away! we have not given it away. sovereignty and the territorialintegrity of our state are guaranteed by the g8-eight of the most developedcountries of the world and the united nations. this guarantee is also containedin the draft of the un resolution 1244. the open issues of the possibilityof an independent kosovo in the period that precededthe aggression have now been closed
with the signingof the belgrade agreement. the territorial integrity of our countrymust not be jeopardized. "not single christian peoples have what the serbian peoplehave had in their history - they do not have kosovo. it was precisely this that had made usinto great peoples. it is our national golgotha.at the same time, it is the resurrection of our peoples,both spiritually and morally." saint bishop nikolaj velimirovic
based on the book by his eminencemetropolitan amfilohije of montenegro and the littoral "chroniclesof the renewed crucifixion of kosovo" you leave, i'll stay! this is the region where the imperial capital prizrenwas situated. where the center of the serbian churchis located, the patriarchate of pecs. it would be sufficient to saythat in the middle age in kosovo and metohiathere were 1181 churches, 113 larger and smaller monasteries,
48 big and famous anchoress, 96 fortresses and old cities, 14 castles belongingto serbian feudal lords and 534 old cemeteries. this most appropriatelyattests to the fact that serbs go a long way backin kosovo, many centuries back. another important argument isthat the serbian people had truly spiltmuch blood defending kosovo. metropolitan amfilohije of montenegroand the littoral
when this terrible plague had startedin kosovo and metohija, when the more militant part of theshqiptars (albanians) had slowly begun to realize the ideas of the prizrenleague from the 19th century, and when in the end,who knows for what reason they had received assistancefrom usa and europe... good afternoon kosovo! ...and thus the ones who were at firstconsidered to be a totalitarian, criminal group, were later accepted asa "liberation movement". (kla/uck)
rule was handed over to them in kosovo. jacques hogartheurope died in prishtina and then they took over kosovo andmetohija slowly, and in the end they proclaimed kosovoan independent state. of course, they were first of all, givensupport by bill clinton, nato, which had, in the form of kfor,taken over rule for a period of time. though there were some positive aspectsto this in that unfortunate moment, when the people were left in confusionwithout any assistance, both the people and the sacred shrines,then they had helped
to some extent to save some thingsand if it had not been for them nothing would have survived. nevertheless, and despite of all this, they had obviously supportedthis final act of violence, the taking away of kosovo from serbia. protopresbyter-staurophormiljko koricanin this problem did not appearonly in 1998. i have known of this problem since theday i was born. if our sisters did not havean older brother,
they were forced to take the bus fromthe village of nabrdje to city of pecs. that bus was always full and we knew that if there were noshiptar pupils on that single bust stop, then the driver just would not stop. in that village of mine,my childhood was spent mainly in friendshipwith children of shiptar nationality, and went to school with them. i am perhaps one of the rare few persons who were taught the serbianlanguage by a shiptar teacher.
at the time i was about to enroll atthe theological seminary, my priest father stanko had to write down my nameand surname in cyrillic script so that i could sign myself because the squiptari teacherdid not know cyrillic. when i was in my fourth yearof theological studies i fell into a crisis, you know,of the type that affects young people; i wanted to abandon my studiesbecause i could not bear the life at thetheological seminary. when i arrived home and told thisto my parents that this was not for me,
that i could no longer bear this,then my father sat me down, "son, i just want you to know,that the squiptari are offering me 3 million german marksto sell our homestead, and you know that our house and landare not even worth 200.000 marks." they want us to move out. they told me that they are giving me1 million not to look at you, because you had enteredthe theological seminary and that you are goingto be a priest tomorrow. this gave rise to my stubbornand proudly defiant response.
thank god i had completedmy theological studies in prizren, and then patriarch pavle had ordained mewith the title of deacon in the monastery of the holy triad,in mushetishte, and of courseyou know what happened to it after and also to the rest of the monasteries. his grace bishop david of krusevac in metohija it startedafter the battle of kosovo and in never ceasednor will it ever cease, because the wheatand the weeds grow together
and it will be so until the harvest. the earliest talerelating to the "wheat" is the story related to our membersof the agricultural cooperatives from which our childrenwere taken away by force. the males were killedand the females abducted. the turkish census of 1455, in which the turks themselveshad concluded that in that region of kosovo and metohia there were 13057 serbian households
75 belonged to vlachs, 17 were bulgarian, and there were only46 albanian households. on the spiritual side pertainingto our godfathers, the family of priests belongingto andrija popovic the archpriest which was killed at the old cemeteryin the village of istok. this priest belonged to a whole lineage of 24 priests. the saintly, recent martyrshariton and stefan,
killed by the kosovo liberation army(kla/uck) in 1999. the same happened to other monks,all the way up to gligorije, the recently martyredvasilije the first of pecs. similar things happenedin the 18th century. a shiptar kills a serbian priestin the devic monastery in 1912 also martyred wasthe church of saint nicolas, from the first half of the 14th century, which was destroyed by explosivesconsisting of over 300 kg of dynamite. priest petar cerovic
just as it happened in the 1990s,so too in the 1980s the situationwas extremely hardfor serbs in kosovo and metohija. that is when the albaniansvery frequently organized demonstrations and riotsasking for certain rights, but they already had greater rightsthan the serbs that lived there. i remembered that back then some peoplewere trying to shoot film, and we, being children at the timealso took part in it. the film was based on a true story about how the serbian peopleare emigrating out of kosovo,
leaving their land and homes,under pressure from the shiptars. the project was halted then bythe national communist police, who confiscated the film material. in addition to everythingthat is already known, as well as the thingsthat happened afterward, all this went on continually,very clearly, with the burning ofthe patriarchate in pecs, in 1981. zuj veseli, from the region of rugova,the keeper of the patriarchate of pecs, at the beginning of the 20th century
at the time of the great fast (lent),the first week, called theodore's saturday,they set our house/monastery on fire. around 4am the house was burningfrom the side of the bistrica river. we did not know what to do? run over there, call the emergencyservice, and call in the people. mother fevronija, abbess ofpatriarchate of pecs, since 1957 i ran out of the mill to tell themwhere they can go through they came with onlyhalf a tank of water, and then the fire increased
and it then engulfedthe entire sleeping quarters ncluding the new partwhich we started building in 1970. "dear brothers, save us!" they said:"we will go to pecs to get water." i said:"get some from the river bistrica! by the time you return,the house will burn down." the whole roof and windowswere engulfed by the fire. only the walls remained standing. that person called ramo,his ancestors from rugova
had been the caretakers of thepatriarchate for the past 300 years, so when the house burned to the ground,he stated that he would no longer be the keeper andguardian of the patriarchate, and he said:"i am now a communist. i do not even believe in my faithnor in yours either. and that is what he would say totourists when they came to the church. and that is how it was, and when he fellill, the deceased patriarch german paid for all of his expenses inthe hospital where they took him in. we first came here in 1957 just before"lady day" (annunciation).
it was desolate here. there were onlytwo women and one monk, father seraphim, a student of theology, and these shiptar boysthat were guarding the patriarchate. then when we had to buy something then they would gotto pecs with some people from that town. because none of us serbs daredto venture outside of the monastery. the chief monk, father jovan zecevic, he was the nephewof the montenegrin mitropolite danilo. he stayed here only for a short while
and then he was kidnappedand taken to albania. there he stayed very longin some monastery and then one night a gangof criminals came and they took him into the forest where they tortured him cut his ears and nose off, plucked outhis eyes while he was still alive, and then butchered himand left him in the forest. and we here, were homeless,there was nothing - no electricity, the roof was leaking,
the floorboards were burnt outsince they made a fire here. the church was erectedby danilo in 1331 and the walls were scraped downto the bricks. so we had to go home again,thank god, we had homes again. and the monasteryhad 800 hectares of land. this property was divided anddistributed by the communists when they confiscatedthe land from the church. they left only 30 hectares of arableland and 30 hectares of forest. the rest of the land was givento the albanian catholics,
who worked there as farm assistants. then they transferred the churchland to their names, and it is doubtful that they will bereturning any of the land to us, although, they ought to at leastreturn some of it, but they haven't returnedanything so far. when a german visitorcame over, he said to us: "your land cannot be returned to you,because the shiptars say that if they return it then they willnot have a livelihood anymore." and that was his excuse.
so, already from 1957we had waged a struggle, but today the situationis the worst of all. then there was the rapeof an orthodox nun, then after, the digging up of graves... then we must not forgetdjordje martinovic who was impaled on a bottle in 1985. the state administration hid this fact and so that, allegedly, passions wouldnot be aroused among the people. but in essence, passions were runninghigh already and were on the rise.
"hey, desolate kosovo,why did you leave me without a son, may you abound in wealth,and may no one ever find fortune in you, and may you never dwellwithout blood being spilt!" hirofira (nilufer hatun), motherof the turkish sultan, murat, after his deathat the battle of kosovo in 1389. in the distance, from kosovo, i bring thee solemn news i bring thee sad news. but now i will not listen to you
nor hear any solemn news from kosovo. o my pigeon carrier,o gray pigeon, gray and alive, my lovely dove... protopresbyter-staurophorradomir nikchevic although 16 years have already gone by, nevertheless all these imagesare very vivid and distinctive, all those things that have been going onsince our yugoslav army left kosovo and the signing of thekumanovo agreement, and up to the time of the arrivalof the metropolitan amphilochius.
he and all those that were with himhad written down all the things that have occurred and were constantlyreceiving news from the field. in 1998 the unfortunate eventsbegan to unfold, a certain chaos had engulfed us in whichwe ourselves seemed lost. we had a great advantage at the time because we introduced radio stationsand because the church itself was independently connectedvia radio stations. those radio stations were laterof great help to us. many people rememberhow in 1998 and 1999,
when our people were banishedfrom kosovo and metohija, the media kept on saying thatradio amateurs were working, but in fact those amateurswere nuns and us priests. therefore, there were no radio amateurs. all information was from the church. although the electricity was already cut and the water was turned offin the patriarchate of pecs, during that period, up to the middleof july, we were not certain whether they were going to break intothe monastery or not and burn it down,
because they set it on fire in 1981so why shouldn't they do it in 1999. that was their position at the time. and it was only when the italiankfor unit placed their guards around the monastery that we wereassured that it won't be destroyed. thus, great was the role ofthe metropolitan amphilochios in the savingof the metohija monasteries, foremost of all the patriarchate of pecsand the visoki decani monastery. his grace bishop teodosijeof raska-prizren during the war in 1998 and 1999 manyplaces were burnt down in this region.
the serbs suffered greatly,but also did albanians, but the holy king stefan decanski didnot let them to reach this holy place. the monasteryhad been attacked as a target four times from 1999 until the present. twenty-nine roundsof mortar-fire had been fired at it but not a single shell fell insideof the monastery walls. it is according to thisthat we may conclude how the monasteryhad been spared throughout its history. from the periodof the ottoman enslavement
and in the periodof world war i and ww ii, and especially so during the time of themost recent conflicts in 1998 and 1999, and then in 2004,all the way up to the present. when our army departed,then the italians came afterwards, the monastery yard was full of soldiers. we brought out our brandyas a greeting in front of the church and said to them:"men, please guard kosovo!" and they said: "don't you fear anything;we will shield you and kosovo." when they were escaping from here, theybrought medicinal drugs for us in sacks.
i cried and i asked:"why do you give us your medicines when you are leaving kosovo?with whom are you leaving us?" they responded:"may god shield you!" and the soldiers cried, right therebeside the icon of the mother of god. then they went away,and then refugees came, around 70 of them.the yard was full up. they stayed here 3 or 4 days,both the sick and the healthy ones. and when they were aboutto depart, they said: we will be leaving kosovo onlyfor three days and then we will be back.
they never did come backand it's been so many years now. and when they were leaving,patriarch pavle said to us, if you dare not stayi will come to stay here and i will transfer youto some other monastery. i said:i will not move out of here alive! let my grave be behind the church. ifthe sister-nuns wish to leave they can. whoever wants to leave may leave,i'll stay! and that is how we stayed hereand thanks to god we have survived. order was non-existent here.
you were exposed to danger all the timeand your very life was at stake. especially the mitropolitan's life. he was known from before by the albanianleaders. his face was easily recognized. i pleaded with him as we weredriving along through pecs and he did not want to take his hat off,and said to me: "radomir, there is no better way to diethan in kosovo?" and i replied: "we are ready to die." it's a different thing when you speaklike that in front of your brothers or friends, that you are always readyfor such a possibility,
but when the going gets tough and whenthat can happen at any given moment, and it is difficult when that momentgoes on for a month or two... i was responsiblefor burying some people, bullets were flyingdirectly above our heads. the first thought to come to mind isto flee from there! but how can i run away? i can't...i had not completed the mourning rite, i cannot leave the peopleunburied in the graveyard. the bullets whistle around your head,you can almost feel them, so the mourning rite lasted15 minutes instead of 40,
but then we managedto bury those people. the only thing we did waswhen you are called up by someone, you jump into the carand whiz off to save people. if you come late, you can imaginewhat you will find there - and we have come upon corpses, which we would bring back with usand bury in the patriarchate yard. we would findnumerous corpses in the roads. and many of them, unfortunately, we hadto bury on the spot, because, simply, the bodies could not be moved,because they were in a decaying state.
we would go to gorazdevac where i was supposed to performthe service at christmas, and then a man from kforcame to me and told me not to go. i informed the people via the radiostation that i would not be coming and that i would see themsome other time. that day, the vehicle in whichi was supposed to travel in was hit by a mortar gun.one kfor soldier was injured gravely. and then the people from gorazdevacunderstood why i had told them that on christmas the children shouldnot go and play in the churchyard.
whether we want to admit it or not,we too had to communicate in codes. that is how we saved many people. unfortunately, there were manythat we were not able to save. already from the 10th, or 12th of june, up to st vitus's day (june 28)and later, during july, terrible things happened there. and many of the people that had remainedin their homes were found dead. others, while escaping towardssavine vode and rozaj, they too were killed
on the way in an ambush. we, from the pecs patriarchatehad the sorrowful duty to find some of them beheaded,and to bury them, most of them close to one ofthe turnings, before savine vode. as a people we tend to takethings too lightheartedly. kfor had entered kosovo already on june10, and the commander michael jackson had allegedly pleadedwith the serbs not to leave their homes. saying that kforhad come to protect them, that they will be creatinga multi-ethnic kosovo
where everyone will be living in,and that they are bringing good fortune. we had witnessed with our own eyeshow these bearers of good fortune only watched the albanians thatmolested, robbed and killed our folk. therefore, the impression gained was onethat they had come and had allowed that albanian fury to be taken outon those that were the most helpless. so much about their protection. it would have been better if theyhad never come to protect us. serbs that had remained there,they were the most innocent of people. those folks thought that they did nothave any reason to run away.
they never hurt anyone, they had notcommitted any evil towards anyone, so they had no reason to hide at all. many of them had been helping albaniansand their children when was needed, so they now thought that these peoplewould also help them in return. and what is most important isthat children, elderly folks, and women without husbands - they werethe ones that perished the most. they were wiped out and stomped uponalready during those first days. "in kosovo the holy duke lazar had defended the most importantspiritual and national principle.
he did not go and take other peoplesland, but went to defend his own land. he did not go to exploit someone else'scountry; he went to defend his own. he did not go to force uponothers his religion; rather he went to protect his own." the holy and blissfully deceased serbianpatriarch pavle. for instance, the place called istok had lost 56 of its citizens. they were taken in and promisedguarantees (besa) by an albanian neighbor,who was of serbian origin,
by some of their own folk, who used to livein the shiptar/arnaut village. 56 persons. one of those persons is father stephan, who, according to the testimonyof an austrian soldieress, was made to walk through istok, through the frenzied mass,which had lynched and dismembered him. father stephan had been preparinghimself for years prior to that event, without knowing, in fact,
that he would be bestowedsuch a martyr's sendoff. so, in that year of 1999,on st vitus's day, father budimir went to perform religiousservice in the pecs patriarchate, and after 15 to 20 minutesi heard some banging noise. they crashed into my parish lodgings,six of them, shiptars. they attacked me and started hitting me. i defended myself as much as i was ableto, but i could not do it more, and soon after a woman fromthe neighborhood heard the noise and ran off to notifythe italian soldiers,
who were on guard watch,but at the wrong gate. they arrived soon after,and when the shiptars spotted them, they rushed outside, pushed them to theside and ran away. no one fired a shot. when i inquired afterwards:"well, why didn't you fire after them?!" they told me that they wereprohibited to shoot at people. because they had come hereto defend shiptars from serbs and now they had to wait for new orders- to defend serbs from shiptars. one decent italian officer told us that somewhere in belo poljeone of our women had been killed
and that they had found herand that it would be good if we were to take her and bury her. we went there and we truly foundmaritza miric with her throat cut. four uck (kla) soldiers had raped her. she was a girl, single,around 30 - 35 years of age. her mother was there also. while they were committing violenceagainst the girl, they kept the mother tied up in the corridor, accordingto the story of that italian. when they had performedviolence over her,
they cut her throatas they would have a lamb. the italians discoveredher body in the meantime, informed us and when we arrived, they covered her naked bodywith a blanket that they found there. we took maritza miric's body over,and wrapped it up in that blanket. there was no possibility of clothing herthere, or of finding a coffin for her. thus we had carried her over in sucha state to the patriarchate in pecs just before st vitus's day and with the blessingsof the abbess mother fefronija,
even though only priests and monksand nuns are buried there, she gave us permissionto bury militza there. when they met the elderly man krsta, from opresak. he stayed in the village, telling peoplethat he did not have anything to fear, because he did no harm to anyone. so, there was considerable righteousnessand bravery on his part. thus he stayed in the house,on his land.
he ended up just like his father, a few decades earlier, he was beheaded. since i know my way around pecs,having been the parish priest, i made my way towards the old hospital,towards the old railway station, that's when they stopped me; they did not ask me anything and theytook me out of the car immediately. they moved my car awayand they brought me into a yard where i had seenmilivoje djurdjic being taken away. he asked me:"father are they taking you as well? "
i replied: "as you can see milivoje,they are taking me as well; it seems that i too am some criminalwho had killed shiptars..." he said: "if we had been killingthem we would not have stayed here." they tied our hands with wire and then they took me to some basement in which i had seen a lot of blood.then the molestation started. then soon afterwardsone of their soldiers, so to say, in a complete uck uniform,placed his rifle to my brow and said: "now you will seehow i am killing a serbian priest."
at such a moment a man is only capable of thinkingof his family and his children. one simply accepts the factthat one may no longer be. but thank god, another soldier camealong, who seems like his superior, and that someone had sent him over, because they must have informed theirheadquarters when they captured me. he said to him in the albanian, notknowing that i spoke the language, that his commanderhad ordered him to release me. a feud broke out between them.the first one said:
"he saw me, and he will accuse meone day, so i must kill him." and then the other one pulled out hisgun and pressed it against his head and said: "if you killhim, i will kill you, so choose." and i saw here how god had mercy on me and after a few minutesthey withdrew and released me, and returned my carand even helped me to start it because previouslythey had broken the ignition key. of course,i continued onwards with my car. how was this possible?well i would also put on a uniform.
our policemen and soldiers wouldfrequently find uck emblems and they would bring them over, soi would stick them onto my uniform. at the invitationof our people from pecs, and they are still aliveeven to this day, i went into one of the high-risebuildings, i knew where they lived. there was a soldierstanding outside of their apartment, to whom i sad "ljargou"!this means "move out of the way!" he thought i was one of them. he askedme if i had come to take them away. i told him that i did.i entered the apartment,
and slapped the face of the man livingthere and said: "tie them up!" i took them down with me and put themin my car, on the back seat. i set off for the patriarchate, that wasthe only way we could save ourselves, but since there wasan italian guard posted there, i had to change my clothes,so i just pulled over my frock, took my cap off and brought them inside. the poor folks were confused... and then they said:"oh father milojko, it's you." i thought that they had recognizedalready back at the skyscraper.
i kind of figured, when i hit him,i thought the man noticed me later when i asked him: it is impossiblethat you did not recognize me? he replied: no father, you are fortunateto have tied my hands beforehand, i was thinking of untying them, tostrangle you from behind in some way. i replied: that's all i needed,for you too to try to kill me. in glavcica, we found two elderly women. they were both murdered;obviously they were raped as well and were thrown into the pigsty. and the pigs, which the albanians didnot steal because they did not eat pork,
they happened to be hungry, they did not have anything to eatso they devoured those corpses. do you know what it feels like when you pick up a woman's sock andin it all you see is a woman's foot? everything had been devouredexcept for the feet and skeletons. there, in village of bijelo polje, we found three persons. two of them we had foundin front of their house. the bulletswent right through their brains.
a group of those uck peoplehad murdered them. the third person was foundon the upstairs floor, was also found, with a bulletgone right through his head, he fell there in a puddle of blood, andabove him, on the wall in that room there stood a big photographof slobodan milosevic. we buried them there underthe protection of the italian soldiers, and from the other side of the fence,we were being fired upon. it is only dueto the miraculous working of god that we ourselvesdid not get killed there as well.
and then,when all those murders had been seen, members of kfor had gathered togetherall the inhabitants of that village, and had transferred them,empty-handed, to some building in pecs. there they stayed for two nights then they transferred them to themonastery of the pecs patriarchate, and then afterwardsthey escorted them to rozaj so that they couldcross over into serbia safely. it is my most profound feelingthat it is difficult to create a future for one's children based onsuch sacrifice and such crimes.
"uã‡k - kla - kosovo liberation army" where are our children? because if we knowthat children had disappeared, and this is unfortunately covered up. you cannot find them.how many people have disappeared? more than 1000 people, for whom we do not evenknow where their graves are located. and although we know thatthe international community had brought up the issueof the selling of human organs,
then you can imagine what the sufferingand strife was of those people whose organs were takenout while they were still alive, and among them there were also children. so on and on, up to those childrenin gorazdevac that were killed in 2003 during the timeof our stay there, but the suffering and strife were only slightly decreasing,but they did not stop. in 2002, 80 families returnedto the village of belo polje. at that time the whole village
was covered with trashand was like a city waste dump. the houses were reconstructed,and some new ones were erected with the aid of organizationsfrom greece and norway that were helping the returnees. in 2004 there was a pogrom again.all the houses were set on fire again. at the time,around 100 of those inhabitants were pushed into the parish lodgings,which was next to the church, with the intention of setting themon fire, as well as the church itself, for the third time.the squiptari set the lodgings on fire,
the serbs started to flee, but theypierced them in the back with knives. when she saw what was happening,an amercian woman soldier shot one of the shiptars who came there to burn downthe village and to kill. then they all scattered and withinten minutes there was no one around. they only cameto pick up that dead person, and after about half a year's time,i was personally present when his parents visited the presidentof the local community to request
that the community should erecta monument there beside the church, because he had died there. he did not die defendinghis home and family, rather he came to burn downthe village and to murder, and as they say "he who shall wielda sword, shall die from the sword." i heard somethingmoving over there yonder. it was smoke coming out from there, and i said to myself,it must be one of the uck men. i waited, looked around,peeked inside slowly,
and to my great surprisewhat did i behold: poor little lamb was hiddingunder the "holy supper", scared of the outside horror.it was the most poignantly thing that i had ever seen andi had already mentioned it today. his grace bishopjoanikije of budim and niksic on march 17, 2004.in the patriarchate of pecs, i met up with the members of my eparchy(diocese) from montenegro, without knowingwhat was about to happen. we had always visited together
the patriarchate of pecsand the visoki decani monastery. but on that evening when we arrived, we felt that something was happening,we did not know what, and then in the later hours ofthe evening everything had exploded. whole metohija was burning. the church in djakovica was set on fireand was demolished. of course, here at the patriarchatethey were greatly disturbed because we were expecting at any momentfor that huge group of people that were outside to execute the pogrom,and to burn down and destroy,
that they would nexthead for the patriarchate. we could hearthe loud noise of the crowd. we on the inside were very cautious. we did not yet have complete informationrelated to what was happening. afterwards we had heard about the terrible fireand destruction in prizren, heard that the church of bogorodicaljeviska, the prizren theological school and the congregational churchwere burnt down, that our people had been killed as well
as our sacred structures destroyed. but the most difficult to hear was how the grave of the holy joanikijeof devic had been demolished; that the frescoes had been set on fire, and we immediately recalledthe beautiful monuments and creationsfrom the 12th and 13th centuries, just imagine, in europe, and under the protectionof the greatest powers in the world that such lawlessness had occurred.
not only are our peoplebeing persecuted and murdered, but also being destroyedare our history, culture, traces of our past, that are standing in the wayof our neighbors. this is what is most tragic. amid all that horror, the commander of kfor came, an italian officer, who announced to the nunsthat they should be cautious,
told them not to go out anywhereand in the end added that they should pack their thingsfor evacuation. the mother abbess (prioress)was very calm and collected. she prayed to god. the nuns had gathered around herlike bees around a queen-bee and i had noticed their readinessnot to leave the patriarchate. this mood had transferredfrom the abbess over to the nuns, and onto all of us. regardless of the fact that thingsseemed so terrible
and that the loud noise of the crowdwas approaching, we had neverthelessfelt the spiritual force which was enabling usto withstand the plight. the commander had saidthat we must pack our things and that they would be readyin one hour to evacuate us and he explained thisin the following way: we guarantee that we will safeguardyour monastery, but if you are here, things will bemuch more difficult for us. you must understand usthat we cannot safeguard
both the monasteryand you in such a situation, and we are under obligationto safeguard your lives, so you must evacuate. then i told him: "you know what, this sacred structurehas been here for 800 years. prayer service had never ceased here. we had never abandonedthese spiritual headquarters of ours and this here center of the entireserbian people and of the church." the mother abbess then quietly said:"we are not going anywhere from here.
if the time for dying has come,we are then ready." we cannot abandon the holy remnantsof the patriarch and arch-bishop for them to burn down and demolish, just like they did in djakovicaand in other places that were demolished and desecrated. it was difficult for the commanderto say it, but he had expressed great respect forthe abbess' position and then he said: "i understand you completely, i too am a christian, and therefore,i have great respect for your position."
the following day, an englishman came, a representativeof the civilian authorities who requested to speak to me. i was extremely cautious. he began telling us how we should be livingin peace with the albanians. and i told him: "yes, sir, but in order for us to be able to livetogether and to work for reconciliation, you must enable our people to returnto their homes, and look,
just under your administration, our people have been persecuted, our sacred templeshave been set on fire, our children have been murdered,women and girls raped, just what reconciliationare you talking about? and he responded: "but you know, you had been irritatingthe albanians the whole time." then i did not simply knowwhat to reply to this man. in such a situation he practicallylaid the whole blame
for all those crimes that werecommitted those days onto us. then, with bitterness in the soul,having seen that there was not much chanceof having a rational conversation, i shifted to irony. and i said: "yes, sir, you are probably right in sayingthat we irritate them very much and as you saywe always pose a danger to them. most probably those four old women that had remained behind to safeguardthe church in djakovica
posed such a danger to that town, that 2000 albanian youths were organizedin order to banish them from there. i was very disappointed with ourconversation and then i asked him whether he was a man of faith, andto which religion does he belong to? we then hadsome coffee to drink, and he said that he did not have any religionand that he was not a believer. and even today i carry insideof me a feeling of sorrow and some eerie feeling fromthat particular conversation. that was not the end of it yet.
after all those events serbsare still being disturbed even today, their homesare plundered and broken into. hang all the serbson the willow trees similarly, my family had an unpleasantexperience two years ago. my father, who had struggledto become a returnee and to reconstruct his house,i had found in a canal in the village. you can imaginein what state his body had been. he was murdered.in what way, we have no information. the coroner's medical examinationwas conducted in prishtina.
during his lifetimehe had expressed his wish, that regardless of where he dies, to be buried downin the holy land of metohija and this had beenthe will of god in the end. thus, the remainderof the serbs in kosovo are living most probably underthe hardest conditions ever in our age. jews are known to all as a peopleswho had suffered and been persecuted, as well as the armenians, but after them, unfortunately,in these times, in this century
the serbian people have been sufferingand have been persecuted; both in these regionsas well as in other regions, where serbshave been living for centuries. elderly men, elderly women,the young were killed. temples were demolished,houses were demolished. the cattle herds were destroyed. also demolished were the crossesand the engraved tombstones as well as the photographsof the deceased. damaged also wasthe land lot of the graveyard.
37 pits were dug up with the intention of throwing the serbsof the village of istok in them. the government of the republic ofserbia, office for kosovo and metohija the graveyard in brestovikwas desecrated and demolished. more than 23 graveshad been unearthed and opened. the coffins were open. also, the cemetery in city of pecs. someone had been worried by issues related to the protectionof the environment of orahovac
and it turned out that the serbiancemetery was somehow "in the way" so someone came up with the ideaof building an asphalt road through it. just like whenthe albanian businessmen in djakovica were vexed bythe very old serbian graveyard, so they built a business center over it. and then again someone was botheredby the very old cemetery in pecs, so they rushed to remove the tombstones, slabs and tracesof ancient christianity. al kaidagreat albania
in ljubovo, the churchof st. vasilus ostroski was destroyed. everything had disappeared in hot flames and everything isunder strong radiation, very strong indeed, and it brings into the questionthe survival of all that exists there. both in recent daysand in the preceding years the consequences are clearly seennot only among the kfor soldiers but also on the youth of our neighbors and unfortunatelythere will be more of this to be seen.
"although we had lost an empire,let us not lose our souls. it is better to lose ones head,then to commit the soul to sin." jevrosima, the mother ofknight marko kraljevic in year 1999, on the terrible day of st. vitus a black darkness descended over kosovo. there was no one leftto call the people to congregate, to call up the malesto perform heroic deeds. there is no duke lazar anymore,no hero milos obilic,
and no one of 9 jugovic brothers. hey, no one is there, except the one forest ranger - who wascelebrator of st. alypos the stylite the mountain wolf milosh cirkovic, who had also treadedon the old path of glory. when we were performingburials at the time one of those italians had saidthat one serbian remained behind, who had stayed in his home and that this wasa chance for him to be picked up,
just like we had picked uphundreds of serbs and had later escorted them off from thepatriarchate towards montenegro. i had asked our priestfather radomir nikcevic to go along with oneof the inhabitants of that village and plead with that person - and it wasmilosh cirkovic - to come over and go with us to the patriarchateand then afterwards as he wishes. milosh cirkovicwas born in 1961 in pecs, in the village of belo polje.
as a young man,he very much loved nature, the livestock, village life and freedom. in 1989 he was given a jobin the mountains just abovethe village as a forest ranger. during that period,between 1988 and 1999, i had been spendingmost of my free time with him. he was a very sociable man.everyone liked him, starting from the youngest of childrento the eldest of men. he was welcomed everywhere he went.
he had a nice storyfor everyone he would meet. he was not a man prone to hubris and he was ready to assistany person in need of help. this applies to all of us serbs from thevillage but also for all the shiptars from the neighboring villages,where they were majority. many of their village mountainsheepherding cottages were there. those days, we could spend the nightin any one of the cottages. the albanians respected him very much. in that period, after communism,when very few people
and especially the youngwould visit the temples, go on a fast,or respected the religious holidays, milosh would frequentlytake us children from the village into our village church and to the pecs patriarchateor visoki decani monastery. he organized celebrationsfor christmas and easter, on which occasion he would showhis musical abilities on the flute, and "gusle" string instrument,to the people. he knew manyserbian epic songs/poems by heart.
one time, during the winter,there was a lot of snow, and we were up in the mountain,and he said: "stop!" and we stopped and he fired his rifleat a pack of wolves, and i am not the only witness,there were four or five of us present, and he shot two of them with one bullet,and the other wolves ran off. then in 1999, when the war intensified,and during the bombing, the army of yugoslavia/serbiacame into the village and had heard of milosh,they called him up to be their guide through those regionsof the prokletije mountains,
because it was closeto the border with albania. he showed them the roads and placesthat were of interest to the army. a few days later, after a bigconfrontation of the uck terrorists with our army, we heardsome loud sounds in the nearby forest. we went in there,and found a wounded goat squealing. it was hit with two bullets - one in theregion of the stomach, and the other one trough the leg. he then told me to take it back with usand that he would treat it with some natural remediesand that the goat will get better.
and truly, god had, apart from other gifts,given this one and after about a month, the goat walked in health on its legsagain and had never again from that day onwards parted from him even one meter,just like some dog. and in the eveningwhen we slept in those trenches, it was always with us. it too knew how to be gratefulfor the good done to it. he was with the army up to the signingof that kumanovo agreement, when the nato bombing ended,when the army, police, and state
were departing from their territory. that is when the people followed suitafter the army and police, to escape. the people were unprotected;there was no one around to lead them. milosh had left kosovo then, for one day,to take his mother and father out, because when peoplestarted running away from the village, he had decided to stay, and his parentsdid not want to leave without him. i had six sons,they were all on the frontlines... ...well...
things could have turned out even worse.i made a cross-like motion, thank god. who knows what kind of fatehad befallen milosh. djurdjina, mother of milos cirkovic they were all out somewhere when thebombing went on. i walked the yard. whichever directioni heard gunfire coming from - that is where dragan is,ljubisha over there, mirche thataway, gojko in the other direction... it's good that i did notgo completely crazy at the time. when we were banished, we all came herealive and in good health.
one man told me just to takea few clothing items with me, and that we would be back in a week'stime, as soon as kfor settles in. yeah, sure... it's been 16 years now. nothing. and the italian base hq were builton one hectare of our land. there was a wooded lot and a field. we had 2.2 hectares, and when theycame they immediately occupied it and built a rifle shooting-ground there.
we filed complaints everywherebut to no avail. and over there in the house,there was no one there and now we don't havea place where to sleep. no. then the shiptars stole all the doors,windows, linen, the dishes, everything is gone, someonehas took it away and lef nothing. the stoves, two wood-burning onesand one electrical stove, and now, we don't have anything there. when they stole it,gojko bought another one,
and then they stolethat one from him as well. what is important is thati have 9 or 10 great-grandchildren, i'm not sure how many, 6 sons and a daughter. they all have childrenand grandchildren, only milosh never married.he was very picky. they pleaded with him from all sides. what's more, good girlswanted to be married to him. he didn't have any shortcomings, buthe thought he would be eternally young.
destiny seemed not to permit him. maybe he would not have returnedto kosovo had he been married. as it turned outhe didn't have a wife or children. he is now looking at us in our misery.he cannot help us... oh god... help me... oh, my son... oh, dear mother... i tried to stop him from returning,we did not even say goodbye properly. i was cross with him. don't go!come back! i was frightened for him.
and he said to me: "what is the matterwith you? don't be afraid. i will be back. i hadforgotten something behind." he had made some arrangementswith some young men to stay down thereand defend themselves, even at the cost of losing their lives. but, believe me,everybody cherishes their own life. the last person who calledhim back was zoro pavlovic, and milosh said to him:"if you call me once more i'll kill you. you leave, i'll stay in my home."
i do not know what happened further. that encounterwith milosh was god's gift to me. it was june the 20th, 1999,if i am not mistaken? the italians warned us thatthe albanians had set up land-mines in the regionand that we should be careful, and that they did not knowin what kind of mental state he was in, whether he was out of his wits, because according to them no normalperson would behave in such a way. and then, i too began calling to himfrom the distance,
so that he would recognize me. when i approached the house, the mancame out - and his beard had grown - in the full uniform of the army ofyugoslavia, true, but without a cap, in his boots, with a cloakand weapons in hand. he invited me to come inside. we started talking and i started topersuade him that it was a lost battle, and that he could see for himself thatthey were burning his village down, that the whole ofkosovo and metohija are in flames, that he should save his own life andthat this was the opportunity to do so.
i told him that the italianswere ready to let him go, all he needs to dois to take of his uniform. and as soon as i said that he shouldtake off his uniform, he then asked: "father, how can i take off my uniform?i am a soldier." i said to him: "man, you mustput on some civilian clothing! come with me, we will go down there,the italians are waiting for us. they promised not to touch you and to transfer you to thepatriarchate in pecs, and montenegro." he replied: "but, no, father!
this is my home, the entrance of myhouse, and i am not leaving here." "come on milosh, please!why won't you leave? the mitropolite had givenhis blessings for you to go." he said: "well you tell the mitropolitethat i am not leaving and that this house will be my grave." i even triedto pull at his rifle saying: "man, just what are you playing at?"i tried to influence him in such a way. i said again: "you will get killed,milosh. you are 38 years old, you are young,and you haven't married yet..."
and he replied:"father, i have already died." and then he led meinto the bullet ridden bedroom, and showed methe blood stains on the floor, where they tried to grab himwhile he was sleeping. and as i looked aroundi could see many empty meat-cans. so, he did not have anything moreto eat, except, obviously, that food whichwas left over from our army. when i saw what kind of a man he was,and his attitude, i was overwhelmed with amazement.i said to him:
"milosh, please stand up so thati can bless you. may god bless you to perform your good deed and give youthe strength to persevere." because i know - and later in theevening i returned to the patriarchate after that meeting and had spentthe whole night thinking of him. i know what kind of mental strengthone needs in order to be able to withstandone single night like that, where everything is clear and visible, and where the vulturesare out to get your head? and he was all by himself,and so until dawn.
and one must sleep, a little at least. he fought against themfor days and nights. they could not understandhow it could be that one man did not want to surrenderand who was defending the whole village. just one man. his drama and that battle with the uckhad lasted for more than 15 days. after about 20 days had gone by, the italian officercame to me again and said: it looks as if something has happenedto that man of yours from belo polje.
we don't know whether he was killed.i suggest you go over there. and then we went over thereescorted by the italian military and we weregreatly surprised by what we saw. the house was burned down,it was still smoking from the cellar. there was no signor trace of milos cirkovic. we went through those premises wherehe had barricaded himself previously. all around there were hundredsof bullet holes and shells. we climbed up to the first story, where the kitchen was,and the guest room as well.
and through the smokei could discern some bones. i said to myself: "that must be him." i took my priest's scepterand approached them, and i pushed the bones and sawthe skull of a sheep or goat. everything was smashed in his kitchen but we found the iconof st. alypos the stylite that was the family patron saint dayof the cirkovic family. and we found his prayer book. i did not manage to contacthis relatives at the time,
but i know that they came laterto the patriarchate of pecs and had takenthose things that we had found. he did not just defend his home,he also defended that icon and the hearth of his ancestors. his family had called me to inquirewhether milos was still alive. he is alive. he will always be living. he is alive in the eyes of god,as all of us. for he is, certainly,one of the new kosovo martyrs.
we went to inquire about himin both churches and hospitals, to see whether he was in their records, if he had come for treatment of wounds. i too consider him to be alive. half of my thoughts thinkof all sorts of endings and the other half that he hadperhaps managed to save himself. my greatest worries were thatthey had caught him and tortured him, but i would feel less remorse if they killed him instantlylike it is befitting for a man.
"over there, there...beyond those hills, they say the castle of my emperorhas been destroyed; there they say where oncewas held the congregation of the heroes. over there, there... beyond those hills.milosh's grave, they say, resides there! there i will receive consummation of thesoul, when serbs are no longer slaves." traditional hymn of montenegro,written by king nikola petrovic in 1867. milosh cirkovichad remained on the defense lines of our faith and the motherland,his centuries old hearth, and had sacrificed himself in anobviously glorious lazaresque manner.
it would not be an exaggeration to saythat he was the last knight of kosovo that had shone in those crucifying times of affliction. as a symbolof the times and the continuer of that chivalrous kosovian knighthood, milos cirkovicdoes not accidentally bear the name of the great hero milos obilic.nothing is accidental. and even if we wanted to forget him,history will not and cannot forget, just like it had not forgotten milosobilic, milan toplica, ivan kosancic,
and all those that hadsacrificed their lives for their faith. and if we look back now to seewhat the greatest contribution was after the sacrifice of duke lazarand his soldiers at kosovo in 1389, after all, the sacrifice of innocentpeople is the greatest contribution and spiritual capitalfor the future of our people. for had it not been for milos obilich, there would not have beena milosh cirkovic, and if it had not been for him, perhaps tomorrowthere would be no new milosh
who would befighting for kosovo to remain and surviveas a testamental serbian land. milosh deserves to have a monumentbuilt in his memory and an icon and if there existsa street named after major tepic, then there should be a streetin belgrade dedicated to milosh, the capital city of all serbs. everyone shapes historythe way one wants, but time will reveal all in the end. the almighty god will hear our prayersand metohija will again be metohija,
the orthodox region that the shiptarspersistently only call kosovo. one italian captain,after many days and weeks of walking and participating in the pulling out and saving of everything of value, even though he had been viewing thingsthrough "cnn's eyes" previously had spoken outin the monastery of devic, and had saidthat our faith was fascinating. serbs are a people of the covenant(testament)... and as long as there is the holytestament (the gospel) in our lives,
there will always be the kosovo covenant(the pledge of kosovo). there were very hard times in the past. serbs had lived through all that,had endured, and had finallyin 1912 experienced liberation from severe slavery under the turks. especiallyfrom the 16th century until today, when there was the great migrationof people from albania to kosovo, we had been livingwith the albanian people and we had never endangered their lives
and we can do so and knowhow to live together with each other. there will be no problems from our side, and the people that have foundthemselves there can live in communitywith the serbian people. relating to the raska-prizren eparchy(dioceses), many people consider life to bethe hardest in that eparchy, and i as the episcope (bishop)truly consider it a privilege to be living in this eparchy. in the region of old rashka(first serbian state in 9th century),
because here we are confrontedwith many dangers, and where it is difficult,that is where god is present and we truly feel his protection. i am more than satisfied.thank god, that he has brought me here, i hope my grave will be here as well, in our most beautiful holy temple,our jerusalem. have you been here?there are four churches and a narthex. saint savaand saint arsenije had built them. in 2004,prizren was burned down completely,
with reference to our serbiancultural and religious heritage. the lord has given usthe strength to start a renewal, and especially in 2011 with the renewal of the work of thetheological seminary of prizren (1871), which is one of our oldest schoolsin these regions. in the city of prizren, where there arepractically around 20 serbs, there is only one school working,where there are 70 of us in all. we have confirmedthat we are christians; that we believe in christwho was crucified,
who suffered, but who had resurrected. i say that kosovo will be ours again.look how many there are of our children. all the other side can do is just talk. many of those that were bornin the previous 20 years, wherever they had been living, had not had the chanceto come to kosovo and metohija. and it is very important for usto stick it out here and to persevere on our path with faithin god, because of all those children, and to provide for them the opportunityto be able to come over
and to see where their spiritual,historical and cultural roots lay. also so thatthey would know that they belong to a peoplethat have their own identity. today, serbs that had stayed to liveon the territory of kosovo and metohija, are resolved to stay there. great faith and hope in god's protection and the wish to safeguard everythingthat our ancestors had left us, is the guiding principle for our peopleand us priests and monks to persevere and to remainin our holy temples,
because we know that only living templesmay safeguard our presence. kosovo and metohiafall into the category of the five holiest of placesof the mediterranean. in 2012, the institutionof the european union in brussels (the european commission) had included the serbian monasteriesof kosovo and metohia into the holiestof regions in world history and had placed it alongsideof four other regions: jerusalem, the holy mount in greece,
mecca and the vatican. consequently, kosovo and metohiastand equal with them according to its templesand its holiness. our four big monasteries, visoki decani, the patriarchate of pecs,bogorodica ljeviska and gracanica had been included in the unesco world heritage listas serbian monasteries. unfortunately,today we can hear a different story, which will most probably be corroborated
by the same institutionthat had proclaimed them serbian, so that tomorrowthey will become "kosovian" spiritual and cultural values. are they doing this sothat they can finish them off, just as had happenedto those that were demolished, or their intention is to use ourholy temples as their own and to thus try to prove their alleged earlierexistence in these territories. because the issueof kosovo is not just an issue belonging to us and the albanian people,
it is imbued with metaphysical realms, taking into account all the things that have been happeningthere through the centuries. just as it happened in the 14th century, it all began with kosovoand it will again end with kosovo. just as that previous period had ended,concluding with 1912 and 1913 when kosovo was liberated. "blessed are they that mourn:for they shall be comforted. blessed are they which do hungerand thirst after righteousness:
for they shall be filled. blessed are the pure in heart:for they shall see god. blessed are they which are persecutedfor righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. you are blessedwhen you are shamed and persecuted and when they speakagainst you using lies and all kindsof foul words because of me. rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven."(gospel of matthew, 5)
one must never forget that sentence of the saintly peter the second,the holy sacrament guardian of lovcen: "our hopes have been buriedin kosovo in a single tomb". he does not say "hopelessness"rather he says "our hopes". our hopes which will,and i am deeply convinced, enable kosovo and metohijato be returned again to god's justice, because god is not manifested in force,but rather in justice. that is how it was, that is how it isand how it will be, if god wills it so. the barley, dear mother, was reaped bythe maiden of kosovo.
screenwriter and directorhadzi-aleksandar djurovic producers: ljiljana habjanovic djurovic,milovan djurovic as she reaped the barleyshe spoke to it: camera operator, editor and scorecomposer: hadzi-aleksandar djurovic o, barley grain, noble seeds, i had reaped you but not eaten you. the bride's men's horses will eat you, one day when serbs return to kosovo. when they gallop swiftly by gazimestan,
and when they gallop up to the greatholy monastery of decani and to the imperial city of gracanica. and to prizren, the emperor's fair city. all to the glory of our great lord god