Hypocrisy of the Montenegrin Regime

The Attitude of the Present Montenegrin Regime towards the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral in the Light of Modern European Laws Regarding Relations between the State and the Church

Montenegro, Dec 28. 2000

It was only a few days ago that the Montenegrin Parliament, Prime Minister and the Minister of Religion, through their written guarantees and decisions, showed signs of good will and made a step towards unraveling of piled up problems. And yet, it seems that, with his yesterday's statements, Montenegrin president, Mr. Djukanovic, deliberately tries to discredit the decisions made by the highest state institutions. It is a well known fact that all the attempts so far to legally protect property, honour and dignity of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, within the institutions of the Montenegrin state, ended up in endless legal proceedings without no prospects of ever being resolved. This means that the only democratic means to try and defend ourselves are peaceful protests.

The peaceful protests of the Orthodox Youth Organization of Montenegro testify the anxiety of young people regarding the future of their Church and the future of the Montenegrin state. Young people are asking the government to put an end to desecration of churches which presents the regime with the perfect chance to manifest, in deed what they kept proclaiming as the key goal of their programme, namely, the power and the importance of the rule of law. These youngsters are, also, determined, if needed, to fight a longstanding battle in order to stir the dormant consciousness of every Christian and a true democrat in today's Montenegro. The efficient mechanisms for the protection of rights of the ancient eight-century old Orthodox Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral and their faithful will really come into effect when everyone of us experiences a true inner change affirmed before the face of God. These mechanisms will not and cannot be actualized in statements before the TV cameras which are full of deception and greed.

Today, the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral is systematically being deprived of its rights. It is clearly visible from the present status of this ancient Diocese established by St. Sava which has, through centuries, been the national and state forming Church of Montenegro, that this Diocese is the pillar of the Montenegrin identity and presents its cornerstone which is exactly why it is being attacked today.

There is no church-state legal contract regarding relations between the state and the Church. This enables various church delinquents to, systematically and without punishment, commit violence against the Church and abuse religious feelings in order to politically manipulate by forging historical and legal facts.

Present Montenegrin regime avoids to give back and reimburse property, which the Metropolitanate was illegally and violently deprived of. This means that the elementary rights of the damaged party to get compensation are being denied.

A law, which would return catechism to schools as a basic human right, guaranteed by the Constitution and many other international legal acts, has never been passed. This means that the rights to religion are disregarded and disrespected.

If the relationship between the state and Church in Montenegro were regulated by contractual law and division of competences, as in civilised European countries, the state would have to bind itself to respect and guarantee the Church's rights to deal with its internal affairs, freely and autonomously. These vital questions deal with the essential identity and being of the Church. Before all, this refers to the rights of the Church (and no one else) to determine what and who the Church is. According to the modern European laws it is the Constitutional right of the Church to determine itself. It, actually, means that the state would have to accept the legality of the autonomous church-legal acts contained in the Church's constitution, and to guarantee their validity within the secular law. This, and only this, means that the state recognizes the Church. And, only in this sense is the state authorized to recognize the church. Through such legal contracts, democratic countries bind themselves to, among other things, respect and legally protect the following:

the organizational structure of the Church
rights to Church service and the protection of the Church service (religious freedom and rights to religion)
Church sovereignty regarding the Church services
legal validity of the decisions made by Church courts (international legally binding decision regarding of defrocking of a church delinquent is flagrantly being ignored in Montenegro)

…

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In addition to plain robbery and violence against the Church's property, the faithful and the clergy of the Metropolitanate, the highest government and legal institutions, skillfully proclaim themselves unauthorized and unable to arbitrate, but at the same time, through the state-controlled media, they organize and instigate undisguised violence and open persecution of the Church. Moreover, the church delinquents are not trying to back up their criminal activities with any canonical or legal claims whatsoever. They are, in fact, relying on the actual conditions where no laws function and therefore there is no rule of law. This allows them, then, to reinstate, once again, the laws of the Wild West in Montenegro.

This is how the legal system of a country as well as the canons of the Church are being destroyed in the name of religious freedoms, which then creates the feeling of total anarchy and lawlessness.

In all this, the church delinquents are supported through a campaign conducted by the state-controlled, supposedly 'independent' media, which ardently keeps proclaiming human and religious rights as well as 'professional' reporting.

Through these acts, the government openly supports the reign of a media-conducted chaos which ends up in total anarchy.

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The plan of the government which instigates robbery and desecration of churches is pointing to the distant past in order to re-establish of a narrow-minded tribal consciousness and atheistic national-chauvinism. The former ideological, communistic fanaticism is being replaced with the ideologically shaped clan mentality, while the blind devotedness to the 'party' transforms itself into false "Doclean"-national romanticism.

Does this mean that neither Church nor state courts are any longer needed in Montenegro? Will instead, every single clan or brotherhood collect signatures and proclaim themselves as a body authorised for just about anything, disregarding courts of law and showing utmost disrespect for the Church?

Does this mean that we can expect hypocrisy and satanism of the worst kind? Are we to expect that the regime will start lynching the Church in the name of religious freedoms of the people who openly declare themselves as satanists?

Press Service of the
Montenegrin Orthodox Youth Organizations

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