Page 901 - Kosovo Metohija Heritage

The Cry of the Serbs of Kosovo and Metohija Bishop Atanasije Jevtić
Blessed are Thou o Lord, God of our fathers, righ- teous are all Thy works, truthful art Thou in all Thine endeavors, unswerving are Thine paths, and Thine judgment based on truth and redemption.
Righteous and fair are thy judgments and admonitions for the sake of our salvation, as well as all that thou hast wrought upon us and our people in this land because of our transgressions. Within Thy realm of truth and justice, Thou hast handed us over to lawless enemies, hateful apos- tates and domestic atheists. Thou has enslaved us by deliv- ering us to unjust foreign masters, to a global tyrant, more malevolent than any other upon this earth.
“Thou hast become angry, and we too transgressed,” said one of Thine servants from antiquity. it is more ap- propriate, for us to say: “we transgressed, and Thou be- camest angry as a result.” Truly we did sin; we engaged in lawlessness, we retreated from Thou and Thine precepts. We erred in all things. Thy redemptive commandments, we failed to keep and obey, as Thou commandest us for our salvation’s sake.
and now Lord, words dare not pass our lips, as we have become objects of shame and ridicule before the world; before the entire human race. Because, dear Lord, we have been reduced and diminished more than any other nation, humiliated across our own land, from west to east. all be- cause of the wickedness of our leaders, the tyrannical ar- rogance of our temporal rulers, and because of our many moral lapses and sins.
as our father, the Patriarch has said, today across Koso- vo and Metohija we find ourselves: “fleeing, night and day with our dispossessed people, from place to place, like a vessel tossed on the open seas, scurrying across the vast expanse, waiting for the sun to set, for the day to fold, and this dark night to pass, like the wintry calamity which has befallen us.” For there is no one to shield us, or to free us from our sorrow. Our pain trebled, weeping, we beseech Thee: “How much longer, o Lord, wilt Thou neglect us? How long will Thou continue to arm Thyself against Thine legacy? arise, o Lord, from Thy slumber. Why does Thou turn Thy face away from us? and again we ask, arise Lord, succor us in Thy Name’s sake. Our sobbing continues un- abated; weeping has overtaken our tears, and still we do not receive help from any quarter.”
Because, all-seeing and Mighty Lord, there is not amongst us today, a prince or a leader. Not an irreproach- able Serb, nor a sacrifice pure and unstained, nor a genuine offering from a blameless heart. We have all strayed from Thy path. Because we’ve distanced ourselves from Thee, because we’ve left Thee, the Wellspring of Life, and sought other newly-dug wells, where the water was tainted even before it ran dry, from which we’re now being offered mud- dy water and sludge in an attempt to poison us with the venom of worldly serpents and global vipers. Thou has right- fully imposed upon us Thine neglect. May this deserved estrangement from Thee and Thine people, as well as from ourselves, in our country within our own temporal flesh, never recur.
Thy houses of worship have been desecrated and torched in our country; sacred monastic sanctuaries razed and de- stroyed. Pure crosses and icons of Thy Holy saints and mar- tyrs have been shattered. Trampled underfoot, first by do- mestic atheists, and now by the foreign heretics and multi- farious occupiers. and so today, as in the time of the Turks, in this Holy Land of the ancient shrines of our fathers, “a solitary Christ extends his arms, awaiting His absent con- gregation.” it’s not there Lord, because your flock has been betrayed and sold; turned over to wolves, handed over to inhumane sycophants and subjugators. it has been sold off, as in the days of slavery, left to the whims and mercy of cal- lous foreigners and murderous albanian arsonists.
The devastation is everywhere. From the Holy Savior’s church in Peć, which is once again surrounded by janissar- ies bent on looting and setting it ablaze, and it continues on both sides of the River Drim throughout Metohija, which has been torched, and its Serbian population exiled. Then across the burned out and destroyed Nerodimlje district, to the fire-gutted Binča Monastery in the Morava plain. With each passing day, attacks become more frequent on the ancient Serbian historic sites of izmornik and Novo Brdo. From Mt. Šar and the fire-bombed monastery of Holy Trinity in Mušutište, and St. Mark’s in Koriša, to the charred Serbian ruins of Podkaljaja in Prizren, and across to King Nemanja’s Hoča where Zočište monastery has been leveled to its foundations. From the new concentration camp for Serbs in Orahovac, to Goleš which was demolished by NaTO bombing, across to King Milutin’s Priština depopu-
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