The Serbian Patriarchate is unpleasantly surprised by the treacherous proposal of the Prime Minister of Montenegro

The Serbian Orthodox Church issued a statement after the meeting of Patriarch Porfiry and members of the Synod with the Prime Minister of Montenegro Zdravko Krivokapic in Belgrade the day before.

The SOC hierarchs were extremely surprised by Krivokapic’s request to postpone the signing of the state agreement with the church until October, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.

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The head of the government of Montenegro informed the citizens of his country that he had conveyed the “will of the people” to the head of the SOC.

“I came to Belgrade, to the Patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church, to convey to His Holiness the greetings of the believers and their desire to see Bishop Joanikije on the throne of St. Peter of Cetinje,” Krivokapić wrote on Twitter. “I proposed to conclude a fundamental agreement with the Serbian Orthodox Church in Cetinje on October 30.”

At the same time, back in April of this year, Krivokapic promised voters that an agreement with the SOC would be signed in the near future. After, however, when the Minister of Justice Vladimir Leposavich, whom Krivokapic decided to dismiss for non-recognition “genocide in Srebrenica,” said that the agreement had been prepared, and began to say that it was “unfinished.”

The statement by the Patriarchate of the SOC states that the text of the agreement between the state and the church was received on May 27 and agreed upon by the Synod. Then the inexplicable began.

“After many hours of delay and notifications from representatives of the Serbian Church about a number of completely different reasons for the delay in the flight from Podgorica, at about nine o’clock in the evening Mr. Krivokapić arrived for the agreed meeting,” the SOC said in a statement. – The Prime Minister of the government in Podgorica put forward new, previously unpresented reasons why he believes that the signing of the agreement should be postponed.

His Holiness listened to these reasons with caution, great patience, but also even greater surprise, not least without understanding the fundamental and justified intention of Prime Minister Krivokapić not to sign the treaty, which was the sole reason for his arrival at the patriarchal court in Belgrade.

His Holiness the Patriarch and the bishops present expressed great regret and concern about the continued position of the Serbian Orthodox Church and its faithful people (considering that the majority of the population of Montenegro is under its omophorion) in the country, as well as the fact that an agreement has not been signed guaranteeing its legal position and, consequently, the religious and civil rights of her children.

Which indicates clear discrimination. The Serbian Orthodox Church and its faithful people, even in these circumstances, will not give up defending their rights and their shrines.”

It should be noted that Montenegro, as a state, signed agreements with the local branch of the Islamic Community of BiH, the Catholic Church, even under the regime of Milo Djukanovic, who categorically did not want to recognize the SOC, trying to establish the monopoly of the schismatic Montenegrin Orthodox Church in the country.

Previously leader of the Montenegrin Serb Democratic Front party said that Krivokapic does nothing without consulting with representatives of Western embassies.