In the fall of 1992, Serbian Patriarch Pavle came to Washington, D.C., to explain why he had led protests in Belgrade against Slobodan Milosevic\u2019s neo-Communist regime and why the Serbian Orthodox Church\u2019s Holy Synod was calling for a new government.<\/p>\n\n
His National Press Club address drew a handful of reporters and none from major media.<\/p>\n\n
This past fall, Bishop Artemije of Kosovo came to Washington, D.C., and warned that the prospects for peace were bleak as long as Milosevic held power. He urged U.S. officials to seek negotiations between Serbs who oppose Milosevic and Albanians who favor non-violence. After all, both Christianity and Islam teach the faithful to live in peace.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cWe are especially concerned that the past United States policy \u2026 to rely on Milosevic as a guarantor of peace is immoral and counterproductive,\u201d Artemije told the Congressional Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe. \u201cWe appeal to all Americans to understand that the conflict in Kosovo is not between the Serbian and Albanian people, but between a secessionist extremism on one side and an oppressive and unrepresentative regime on the other.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The bishop\u2019s visit passed with barely a notice.<\/p>\n\n
Today, Milosevic\u2019s opponents in Serbia are hiding in bomb shelters or hiding from secret police in the final days before Pascha (Easter in the West) on the ancient calendar used in Orthodox Christianity.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s especially tragic that the world hasn\u2019t been able to hear the voice of the Serbian church through all of this,\u201d said Father Alexander Webster of the Orthodox Church in America, a historian who also is a chaplain in the U.S. Army National Guard. He is the author of \u201cThe Price of Prophecy,\u201d which details both Orthodoxy\u2019s triumphs and failures in the Communist era.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt seems like everyone, from the White House on down, has been rushing to demonize the Serbs without asking if everyone in Serbia deserves that label. The reality is more complex than that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
While some Serbian bishops have blessed past military efforts, the church has consistently condemned Milosevic and all violence against civilians \u2014 Albanian, Croat or Serbian. The church also has opposed economic embargoes that hurt Serbian civilians and \u201cefforts to cut Kosovo out of Yugoslavia through military force,\u201d said Webster.<\/p>\n\n
The roots of this crisis are astonishingly complex, ancient and bloody. In 1204, Western crusaders sacked Constantinople, massacring Eastern Christians and Muslims. In 1389, Serbian armies fought \u2014 virtually to the death \u2014 while losing the Battle of Kosovo, but managed to stop the Ottoman Empire from reaching into Europe. The Kosovo Plain became holy ground.<\/p>\n\n
Leap ahead to World War II, when Nazi Germany tried to use Albanian Muslims and Catholic Croats to crush the Serbs. Then Communists \u2013 such as Milosevic \u2013 took over. In the mid-1990s, the United States all but encouraged Croat efforts to purge Serbs from Krajina, where they had lived for 500 years. The West has been silent as Turkey expelled waves of Eastern Orthodox Christians.<\/p>\n\n
Since morphing from Communist to nationalist, Milosevic has skillfully used Serbia\u2019s array of fears, hatreds and resentments to justify terror in Kosovo and elsewhere by his paramilitary and police units. The Serbian strongman knows that Kosovo contains 1,300 churches and monasteries, many of them irreplaceable historic sites.<\/p>\n\n
Retired New York Times editor A.M. Rosenthal, who once won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Eastern Europe, put it this way: \u201cI do not get emotional about the history of Kosovo. I am not a Serb. Serbs do. \u2026 Serbs are as likely to give up Kosovo willingly because the Albanians want it as Israelis are to give up Jerusalem because the Arabs want it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Meanwhile, the Serbian bishops have released yet another statement reminding both sides that the \u201cway of non-violence and cooperation is the only way blessed by God in agreement with human and divine moral law and experience.\u201d They also added the following prayer to worship services in Holy Week and Pascha.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cFor all those who commit injustice against their neighbors, whether by causing sorrow to orphans or spilling innocent blood or by returning hatred for hatred, that God will grant them repentance, enlighten their minds and hearts and illumine their souls with the light of love even towards their enemies, let us pray to the Lord.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cLord have mercy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the fall of 1992, Serbian Patriarch Pavle came to Washington, D.C., to explain why he had led protests in Belgrade against Slobodan Milosevic\u2019s neo-Communist regime and why the Serbian Orthodox Church\u2019s Holy Synod was calling for a new government. His National Press Club address drew a handful of reporters and none from major media. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n