BETAWEEK, E 2
July 8A Career: Bishop Artemije
The Serb Makarios
The Bishop of Raska and Prizren Artemije has in recent years transpired into the leading figure among orthodox clergy in the Serbian province of Kosovo. After the Serbian army, police and organs of central authority fled from Kosovo in June, circumstances led Bishop Artemije to a position akin to the one once faced by Archbishop Makarios on Cyprus. The Church is the only Serbian institution of authority left in the province, and the bishop has accepted an active role in politics in an effort to protect the remaining Serbs from armed Albanian groups who desire vengeance for former pogroms and abuses.
Church officials say that its leaders in Kosovo were simply forced into politics, as all those who should look after the security of the people have left the province. The antagonism between the Church and the authorities has been brewing for several years now. When ten years Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who was then the president of Serbian, launched the slogan "All Serbs in a single state," which meant that parts of Croatia and Bosnia with majority Serb populations were to remain in Yugoslavia, he enjoyed the full support of the highest dignitaries of the Serb Orthodox Church. Because the policy of the then Serbian president ended with the exodus of the Serbs from Croatia, as well as from parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serb Orthodox Church started to oppose him fiercely.
The Church became especially interested in political issues and the fate of the Serb state since the crisis in Kosovo escalated. The Church sees Kosovo as the cradle of Serb spirituality. Two senior church officials were most notable in this respect. Both the Bishop of Raska and Prizren Artemije and the Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Coast Amfilohije are members of the Church Synod, the governing body of the Serb Orthodox Church, which has five members elected to two year terms. Over the past ten days on several occasions they accused Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for implementing the wrong policy in Kosovo.
During the mass exodus of the Serb population from Kosovo, which started with the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army and police from the province, the Church formalized its call for replacing Milosevic. The Holy Archierical Synod of the Serb Orthodox Church officially announced its demand on June 15. The Synod assessed that new people, acceptable to both the domestic and international public, should take responsibility for their people and its future as a government of national salvation. It is widely believed that Metropolitan Amfilohije and Bishop Artemije had a strong influence on the creation of this Church stand.
Bishop Artemije as the leading church official in Kosovo, is firmly involved in attempts to establish political relations with the Kosovo Albanians. He has accepted to meet with the leader of the separatist Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Hashim Thaqi and sign with him a statement in which they call on all citizens of Kosovo to end the violence, advocate for the return of refugees and condemn the authorities in Belgrade. Bishop Artemije described the joint statement as the basis for further negotiations with the Kosovo Albanians in starting the democratic process, which should facilitate "peaceful and normal life for all people in Kosovo." Following this Belgrade accused him of splintering the unity of the Serb people and practically branded him a traitor.
ARTEMIJE Radosavljevic was elected Bishop of Raska and Prizren at the Serb Orthodox Church congress in May 1991. Until then Artemije had been the prior of the Crna Reka Monastery on the border of the Sandzak and Kosovo, while he took over the Episcopal department from Patriarch Pavle, who had held it for 33 years.
Artemije was born in the hamlet of Lelic near Valjevo on Jan. 15, 1935. Artemije's role model and inspiration was Justin Popovic, one of the greatest orthodox theologians of the century, who lived in the same area in the Celije Monastery.
He went to school in valjevo and attended the seminary in Belgrade. After becoming a monk at Celije Monastery in 1960, he studied theology in Belgrade.
He taught for four years at the Krka Monastery seminary, near Kristanj in Croatia. He then continued his studies in Athens, where he received his doctorate. He spent 1976-1977 studying in Germany, after which he was a professor at the seminary in Prizren, becoming the prior of the Crna Reka Monastery in 1978, where he gathered more than 20 monks to create an important spiritual center. He spent 13 years there, until he was elected bishop. As the new bishop he renewed the Visoki Decani Monastery, which quickly became one of the spiritual centers of the Serbs in Kosovo. As a result of his efforts, the Monastery of the Holy Archangels near Prizren was also renewed.
He published a number of the books on theology and translations from Greek. In 1993 he founded the Knez Lazar magazine, one of the foremost theological magazines.
When he was enthroned as the Bishop of Raska and Prizren he came to realize the tragedy of the Serbs and the Serb Orthodox church in Kosovo and became a fierce critic of the policy of the authorities in Belgrade, accusing them of persecuting both the Serbs and Albanians. He advocated for resolving the problems in Kosovo by peaceful means, without violence or terror, with democracy for the Serbs, Albanians and the entire region of the Balkans. He proposed diving Kosovo into cantons as a solution for its problems.
Artemije sees the cause of the Kosovo crisis in the fact that Albanian separatists and extremists were opposed by the undemocratic regime in Belgrade, which tried to resolve the problems in Kosovo by force, and that in response to the undemocratic policy, a terrorist form of Albanian extremism developed.
"Let us lay down our arms. Let us stop murdering one another and sit down to talk about making our lives better in a democratic Serbia, in a democratic Balkans and a united europe," said Bishop Artemije to the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo at a protest meeting of Serbs in Pristina at the beginning of the year.
The Bishop believes the dire situation in Kosovo is the result of a policy which "created these events, just as it had done with Serb Krayina around Knin, with slavonia, with parts of Bosnia" warning that if the regime in Serbia does not change, Kosovo "will travel the same tragic road as other Serb regions."
Not accepting the assessment that the Serbs in Kosovo had been the crutch of Milosevic's regime, the Bishop of Raska and Prizren claims that the Kosovo Serbs were the first and most manipulated by the authorities and Milosevic's regime and that the difficult position of the Serbs in Kosovo was used at the close of the eighties to create " a euphoria of public protest, which was to serve as the basis for strengthening the regime."
"Today the Serbs in Kosovo and Metohija have come to see that they were manipulated and cheated, but they can do nothing to better the current situation," said the Bishop of Raska and Prizren in an interview to the Kragujevac based newspaper Nezavisna Svetlost in January of this year.
He participated in meetings with representatives of the Kosovar Albanians in Greece and Germany, organized by the Bertelsman Estate from Germany, and to explain the Church stand on Kosovo he traveled to Moscow, Bonn, Paris, London and to Washington on several occasions. Believing that only the Church authentically represents the interests of the Serbs in Kosovo, he asked the Yugoslav authorities and international mediators to include a delegation of Kosovo Serbs, which he would personally lead, as legitimate participants of the peace talks on Kosovo in Paris in February and March this year. At the time he assessed as "unreasonable" the stand of the Yugoslav authorities not to accept the presence of a foreign factor in Kosovo, emphasizing that it was expected the foreign representatives would be objective. "Pressure or threats to one side only does not lead, nor can it lead to a peaceful resolution of the Kosovo problem," said Artemije at the time.
"We were gladly received and listened to everywhere... but we could not tell our truth to the Serbian President (Milan Milutinovic," said he, recalling that the Kosovar Serbs on six occasions attempted to talk with him and that not on any occasion did they receive a reply from him.
Through the Serb Resistance Movement from Kosovo, which was founded by Momcilo Trajkovic and which actually articulates the political stands of the Bishop and Church, a Serb-Serb dialog was established in an effort to unite the Serbian opposition. When the Alliance for Change was founded, which gathers democratic and reform oriented opposition parties in Serbia, Bishop Artemije supported the Alliance at their meetings.
The state media do not report on the activities of Bishop Artemije, but they carried the accusations of the Socialists from Kosovo and the Serb Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj that the Bishop is a traitor. Commentaries have multiplied in the pro-regime press in the last few days, which openly attack the Bishop of Raska and Prizren Artemije for betraying the Serb interest.
(Beta)
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