Kosovo “authorities” have allowed attacks on 236 churches, monasteries and other Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) sites, as well as cultural and historical sites since 1999. In total, 174 places of worship and 33 cultural and historical sites were destroyed, and more than 10 church icons, religious artifacts and art objects were stolen.
The Permanent Representative of Serbia to UNESCO, Tamara Rastovac Siamashvili, writes about this on the NewEurope website, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“One of the most beautiful and valuable monuments of Serbian medieval art and culture, as old as Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, was set on fire during a pogrom in March 2004 by ethnic Albanians of Kosovo. In the area south of the Ibar River, not a single Serbian historical monument remained undamaged,” writes Siamashvili.
According to her, in modern Kosovo and Metohija they are trying to destroy everything that reminds of Serbia and the Serbs as the original majority of the population of the region. There are also violations of the property rights of the SOC, usurpation of church property by institutions, and deprivation of Serbian Orthodox believers of the right to profess.
“Contrary to historical facts, objects of Serbian cultural heritage are falsely presented as Albanian, Byzantine, Catholic, Illyrian and many others, which introduces a new, no less dangerous aspect of the destruction of Serbian cultural heritage in the region. We are faced with an unprecedented attempt to forcibly appropriate the cultural heritage of one people in a certain territory,” writes Siamashvili.
Kosovo and Metohija is the cradle of the Serbian state and church, as well as the spiritual home of the centuries-old culture of the Serbian people. There are about 1300 churches, monasteries and other sites that constitute the cultural heritage of Serbia