Page 900 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

Metropolitan amfilohije (Radović)
tury of the strongest spreading of the Ottomans (Turks) and ethnic albanians in the Greek and Serbian lands.
Let us recall here the words of his appeals and entreat- ies to his flock decimated or confused by “fear of the Turks and ethnic albanians”: “Let a Christian man or a woman, who promises not to speak Albanian at home, stand up and tell this to me, and i will take all their sins upon my soul, since their birth until now. i will ask all Christians to for- give them and they will receive forgiveness which, other- wise, they would not receive, even if they gave thousands of gold coins”...
The foreign language of the heterodox, who were mas- ters of life and death of these poor people, could only blur and corrupt their clear Christian conscience, and their good Christian customs. as often happened in practice, it would separate them from the Church and finally make them con- vert. Spiridon Gopčević and our other travel writers from the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries, witnessed not only the individual examples of conversions, but the whole islamized villages of the Christian Orthodox Serb popula- tion in the Serbian south and southwest, all the way to Thes- saloniki and albania. Out of fear of Muslim albanians they switched to the albanian language at their own home.
This bloody cycle has become too heavy from sins to be stopped by any unspiritual means, which neither trans- form the hearts nor bring us all together to the deepest repentance. Not only through the confession of wrongdo- ing and regret over them, but also through the renuncia- tion of all this within us that has ever alleged first of all al- banians, but also the Serbs, both as individuals and as na- tions to lawlessness and crime. especially, the renunciation of destructive lust and the arrogance of living, of immer-
Serbian Graveyard
in Podujevo, desacrated by the Albanian extremists in 2004
sion into the earthly kingdom that “lasts only a brief time”26 and of the alienation of the Kingdom of Heaven, that is “everlasting and forever”... Our people know very well why they say, “Sow not evils in the furrows of injustice, and thou shalt not reap them sevenfold,” both in this world and in the other one.
During this time our brothers in the north hasten to europe. The Federal Prime Minister Momir Bulatović an- nounces in Belgrade: “Despite the eleven-week-conflict with the forces of NaTO, FR of Yugoslavia sees her future in strengthening her relations with the neighboring countries and europe and will constantly strive to be involved in all economic and political processes in the region of europe.”
in Novi Sad, the international Festival of “alternative and New Theatre,” “iNFaNT,” has begun in the Catholic churchyard and on the Petrovaradin bridge on Danube de- stroyed by the NaTO bombings. The program includes performances and installations, as “artistic documents of the evil times,” including “The aircrafts of Darkness,” “i Vote for Peace,” “SFRY,” “The Threepenny Opera” and “The Nightmare for Two”...
For further reading see: Chronicles of the Renewed Crucifixion of Ko- sovo by Metropolitan amfilohije (Radović), Belgrade–Cetinje 2014.
26 Quote from the famed epic cycle of Kosovo; when reflecting on the choice the angel of God offered him when his nation was threat- ened by the Ottomans, Holy emperor Lazar prayed:
Dear God, what shall I do and how shall I?
Which kingdom shall I choose?
Shall I choose the earthly kingdom?
Or shall I choose the heavenly kingdom?
The earthly kingdom lasts only a brief time, Buttheheavenlykingdomalwaysandforever—transl note
898