Former Metropolitan of the Montenegrin-Limitarian Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) Amphilochia he requested in May 2007 that the Montenegrin Constitution define – the Orthodox Church.
However, the idea proposed by Amfilohije in an official letter to the Constitutional Committee of the then Constituent Assembly of Montenegro was not realized, so on October 19, 2007, the highest legal act was adopted, which only states that religious communities are separate from the state, equal and free in performing religious ceremonies and religious affairs (Article 14).
In the letter of the Episcopal Council of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro, which was chaired by Amfilohije, it was stated that in the then Article 13 of the draft constitution, the position of the Orthodox Church, as well as “the other two traditional religions in Montenegro”, was conceived in an unacceptable way, and that the Orthodox Church, “which has had that name – Church – for 2,000 years”, cannot be recognized under the general term “religious community”.
In the document that “Vijesti” had access to, it is added that this term is reminiscent of a constitutional solution from the totalitarian period, as well as that it offends the religious feelings of “the believers of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro, as well as the believers of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Amfilohije further stated that the Episcopal Council of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro proposed that part of that article of the highest legal act reads: The Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the Islamic community and other religious communities are equal and separate from the state.
The previous Constitution, the one from 1992, defined that the Orthodox Church, the Islamic religious community and the Roman Catholic Church and other religions are separate from the state, equal and free in the performance of religious rites and affairs… (Article 11).
The story about the Orthodox Church in Montenegro was updated last week by the former prime minister Zdravko Krivokapicwho called for the return of the decision of the Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church from May 2006, which defined the Orthodox Church in Montenegro. That decision was repealed in 2021.
“Although I had more information about the election of the patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church (Porphyria), we now have a clear testimony of the unholy action planned by the ‘Lord of all Serbs’. One should always be in the truth and say: the one who was not chosen by the Holy Spirit – is not worthy. ‘One cannot serve God and mammon’. Therefore, the decision from May 2006, which defined the Orthodox Church in Montenegro, should be restored immediately,” Krivokapić wrote on May 28 in a post on the “X” social network.
His message was received “with a knife” in the regime tabloids in Serbia, while the leader of the Democratic People’s Party (DNP) Milan Knezevicclose to the president of Serbia Aleksandar Vučićsaid that Krivokapić is an “undisguised church separatist”, and that he should be expelled from the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, the Eparchy of Buda and Nikšić and the Serbian Orthodox Church did not respond to the question of “Vijesti” – what is their position regarding Krivokapić’s proposal.
Šaranović: Independence is the reason for the Parliament’s decision
What is the historical foundation behind Krivokapić’s message? Nikola Šaranovićcorrespondent of the Sociological and Legal Data on Religion in Europe (EUREL) project from Montenegro and a member of the International Consortium for Law and Religion Studies (ICLARS), explains to “Vijesti” that it is found in the decision of the Serbian Orthodox Church from May 26, 2006 that “the Orthodox Church in Montenegro consists of the dioceses of the Serbian Orthodox Church: Montenegrin-Primorska, Budimljansko-Nikšić, as well as parts of the dioceses of Mileševska and Zahumsko-Herzegovina”, whose bishops “make up the Episcopal Council of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro, which, under the presidency of the Archbishop of Cetinje and the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, will meet as necessary for the purpose of consultation and decision-making within its jurisdiction”.
Saranović explains that the Serbian Orthodox Church based its decision on the 34th Apostolic Rule:
“The bishops of each nation should know the first one of them and consider him as the head, and they should not undertake anything more important without his knowledge, but let each one undertake only what concerns his diocese and regional places. But even that first bishop should not do anything without the knowledge of all the other bishops. Because in this way there will be unanimity and God will be glorified through the Lord in the Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.”
The interlocutor reminds that it should be emphasized that such a status does not represent an autonomous church, because, he claims, such a decision would be based on another canon, which is canon 38 of the Council of Trul:
“And we recognize the rule issued by our Fathers, which says that if a city was founded by the imperial authority or is yet to be founded, in such a case the division of church affairs should follow the state and civil division”.
Saranović says that, in other words, the church division follows the state, i.e. administrative division, and that according to that canon the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued the tomos to the United Autocephalous Serbian Orthodox Church in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, today’s SPC, which included the bishoprics of the former autocephalous Montenegrin Church.
“… Well, it wouldn’t be church separatism even if its restoration was based on the same canon, as autocephalous after 2006, and as autonomous even before. And it was precisely the restoration of Montenegrin independence that was the reason for the decision of the council on the Orthodox Church in Montenegro, as it was said, ‘respecting the reputation of the Metropolis of Montenegro and its historical role in the life of Montenegro, which regained its statehood, as well as beyond’. Although it was not about autonomy, the Orthodox Church in Montenegro Gori was a Montenegrin organizational peculiarity within the organic unity of the Serbian Orthodox Church”, Saranović assessed.
He said that, if it is church separatism, then the church separatists are all those bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, headed by the former patriarch Paul and Metropolitan Amfilohi, who made the aforementioned decision.
Milićević: Theologically and politically correct
Theologian from Belgrade Vukašin Milićević he told “Vijesta” that he fully supports Krivokapić’s position, adding that he thinks that returning the decision from 2006 would be responsible from both the theological and political points of view.
“My position is that this model of organization should be applied to all countries where the SPC operates and that something like that would only strengthen that church, because it would pull it out of the jaws of banal nationalism in which it has been especially in recent years, and for too long already. Those jaws are nothing more than serving a regime that has been shown to be only the political wing of organized crime,” said Milićević, stating that he thinks that such a thing is a question of the SPC’s survival – not only in the countries surrounding Serbia, but also in Serbia.
The interlocutor stated that the metropolitan type of organization, which was already formed in the SPC, could be raised to an even higher level and that those areas (metropolies) were given substantial, functional autonomy, which, according to him, was completely in line with the needs and requirements of functioning in a different legal and political environment, compared to the one in Serbia.
Asked how he views the verbal attacks on Krivokapić from both Belgrade and Podgorica, including accusations of “ecclesiastical separatism”, Milićević replied that they are nonsense that supports his assessment of the state of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
“I think that the SPC, the Serbian people, and the Serbian national interest have no better friends than people who think like Mr. Krivokapić… Such statements speak more about those who made them than about Mr. Krivokapić,” Milićević said.
Vučić, the secular head of the Serbian Orthodox Church
The decision of the SPC Assembly from 2006 was annulled in May 2021, when that assembly, under the leadership of the then newly elected Patriarch Porfiri, made a decision abolishing the episcopal councils as temporary advisory church bodies, among which was the Episcopal Council of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro. Then it also belonged to Amfilochius’ successor, the metropolitan Ioannikithe title of Archbishop of Cetinje was taken away. Immediately after the Assembly, Joanikije said that “the Assembly demonstrated and strengthened the unity of the Serbian Orthodox Church and refuted all media speculations and insinuations about some kind of splits and divisions”.
Šaranović, commenting on the cancellation of that decision five years ago, said that the explanation that episcopal councils were abolished in the entire SPC is not sustainable, bearing in mind that all other councils were the episcopal councils of the SPC, and only in Montenegro – the Episcopal Council of the Orthodox Church.
“That title, it should be recalled, was entered into the first Constitution of democratic Montenegro in 1992 at the suggestion of Metropolitan Amfilohi, who was given back the title of archbishop in 2006 – not as a person, but as an institution. Both were abolished by ‘equalization’ in the Serbian Orthodox Church, so that the title of archbishop would be returned when it was awarded to some other bishops, and finally added to the new title of Metropolitan of Budimlja-Nišići The method“, he asserted.
Apart from Krivokapić, a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church was also targeted by the regime media in Belgrade Gojko Perovicwho was called a “separatist” because he attended the reception on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the restoration of state independence, as well as Ioannikia. On the question of how such attacks should be viewed, if it is taken into account that Joanikije was one of the few who voted against the dismissal of the Metropolitan of Žica at the SPC Assembly in mid-May Justinwho supported students in Serbia in the fight against Vučić’s regime, Saranović replied:
“Short-term and tactical – as disciplining those who are not of ‘one mind’ with the ‘alliance of thrones and altars’ and whose voices are not in agreement with the notes of the current state-church symphony in Serbia. Long-term and strategic – as the implementation of the Strategy for preserving and strengthening relations between the mother country and the diaspora and the mother country and Serbs in the region, as an official document of the Republic of Serbia”.
Asked to what extent the policy of the authorities in Serbia today shapes the behavior of a large part of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the interlocutor answered – so much so that it is difficult to escape the impression that the Serbian president acts as the secular head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the Serbian patriarch as the spiritual president of all Serbs.
Šaranović: The Cetinje Metropolitanate was once autocephalous, today it is a bishopric of the Serbian Orthodox Church
Nikola Saranović said that the “Holy Metropolitan Cathedral of Cetinje” does not remember its current position in its history.
“From the archbishopric chair of the head of the autocephalous church until 1918, to the only metropolitan chair in Montenegro in all communities, it was until recently the seat of the president of the Episcopal Council of the Orthodox Church in Montenegro. And today – just one of the bishoprics of the Serbian Orthodox Church,” he said.
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