Balkanalysis.com

The three-year saga of Jovan the Schismatic – the defrocked Macedonian puppet-monk who has been installed from afar as Archbishop of Ohrid by the Serbian Orthodox Church – seems to be winding down, which is somewhat unfortunate since it has been so entertainingly ridiculous.

-’You can’t use ‘entertaining’ as an adverb!’ –’Yeah, well you can’t go installing leaders in someone else’s country!’That is basically what the case boils down to, though incredibly enough the outside world has shown overt sympathies for the Serbian side. Absurd attempts to classify the detention of a man who claimed to be king for three years as some kind of a human rights transgression have been made by the West.

Now everyone might have been able to sit back and have a laugh – “oh, those wacky Orthodox priests, look at them go!” – had not the Serbian government unfortunately decided to get involved.

Do they have nothing better to do, one wonders? Of course, everyone gets a little crazy during the sweltering Balkan summers. But did Kostunica really have to make grave intonations about this dire threat to the Serbian people? Did the Serbian Ministry of Transport really have to ground an airplane belonging to Macedonian Airways (allegedly because of bills outstanding), simply because the Macedonian Church and people refuse to let an outside state nominate their bishops?

However, things seem to be returning to normal, at least on the presidential level. Presidents Tadic and Crvenkovski spoke a few days ago and “…agreed that the solving and settling of all church issues should be left in the hands of the Serbian and the Macedonian Orthodox Churches.”

On 26 July the so-called “Archbishop of Ohrid” Jovan was jailed for two and a half years in Skopje’s Idrizovo prison for “breeding race, national and religious hatred.” We have no doubt that the authorities will cave in to international pressure long before then and release him.

Although the issue has inconceivably been spun as one of ‘human rights’ oppression in Serbia and in the West, Crvenkovski told it like it is: “…when we talk about this person, [Jovan] Vraniskovski, we’re talking about a Macedonian citizen, about a person who is not from the Serbian minority in Macedonia, about a person who is trying to create a new church organization in Macedonia – a person who isn’t interested in protecting the religious feelings of the Serbs in Macedonia, but simply wants to deny [the existence of] the Macedonian Orthodox Church.”

Of course, the Serbian church has attempted to play up the bogus ‘human rights’ dimension of what is in essence a hostile takeover case, as this statement from August 3 shows:

“…The Holy Synod of Bishops, by the same token, reminds the governments of the countries that are signatories of international conventions for the protection of human and religious rights, as well as organizations concerned with the protection of human rights, that relevant conventions (the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms, the International Pact on Civil and Political Freedoms, the United Nations Declaration on the Abolishment of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion and Confession, etc.) give then every right to react and to direct a protest t the Macedonian Government for violation of human rights; and furthermore, bind them to initiate a complaint against violators before the European Court for Human Rights, and to undertake other measures in accordance with the relevant documents and international law.”

Serbian PM Vojislav Kostunica has been whipping up a fever of nationalism over the incarceration. So the response of his Macedonian peer, Vlade Buckovski, was slightly more guarded:

“…I represent the Government’s opinion that we respect the separation of powers, and Mr. Kostunica knows that very well, because he is a professor of law, and that the government’s capabilities are limited… at this moment we have only what is possible under the law’s possibilities.”

However, Buckovski was reticent to give a ‘prognosis’ on how the case will end up.

Macedonia is not the only place where the Serbian church is pushing hard. Weird events like Serbian army helicopters landing a church on a mountaintop in Montenegro indicate that tensions will certainly rise over the religious and ethnic divides in that republic. According to the Serbian church, which possesses a long memory, the Mt. Rumija chapel is meant to replace one destroyed by the Turks- in 1517.

For Montenegrin Albanian politician Mehmet Bardhi, who had a somewhat shorter memory, the airlift was simply “…the biggest provocation against the Albanians in the past 50 years.” Them’s fightin’ words!

Montenegrin authorities ordered the church to be removed, but it apparently is staying, so far at least. The Serbian church lobbied the authorities by drawing relations to both the destruction of Orthodox churches in Kosovo by Albanians and the proliferation of “tens of thousands” of unregistered illegal Albanian houses throughout Montenegro. Should not the Montenegrins feel some pangs of conscience regarding the former? And should they not do something about the latter? So goes their argument.

The whole issue has set off the pro-independence factions as well as the Albanians. The Serbian church still has some life in it yet, apparently.

However, not all Serbs were swept away by nationalist outrage over the Bishop Jovan case. Dusan Mihajlovic, former Minister of Internal Affairs in the government of the late Zoran Djindjic, said in an interview with Belgrade economy newspaper “Pregled” that the Serbian government should endeavor “…to keep good relations with Macedonia, because Macedonia was a very good friend to Serbia when everybody else was against Serbia, for example during the sanctions [of the 1990s].”

Mihajlovic laments, “…the Serbs as a people are talented at making their own best friends into enemies.”

Indeed, one would think that the Serbian church had more important things to worry about than installing faux bishops in Macedonia, what with the 130 Serbian churches that have been destroyed in Kosovo over the past 6 years.

More likely, however, they’ve seen the writing on the wall and decided that Kosovo is a lost cause, good only for righteous indignation but little else. However, it is a big, big blow. And making up for the loss of Serbia’s spiritual heartland might require taking control of Macedonia and Montenegro, apparently.

This very interesting phenomenon – the resurrection of the church in Serbian politics – shows that the secession of Montenegro, the independence of Kosovo and (perhaps) even the secession of the Sanzak will be turbulent and complex. So far, in the Montenegrin showdown, both the S
erbs and Albanians have found ways to tacitly threaten that the other is about to cross the line, and some sort of retaliation may follow. Montenegro may end being where Kosovo, round 2 gets fought.

As the Serbian church entreaty to Montenegrin Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic ominously stated,

“…The destruction of this chapel of the Holy Trinity at the request of Muslim deputies and in the immediate vicinity of Kosovo and Metohija where local terrorists who are unfortunately compatriots of this deputy [i.e., Mehmet Bardhi] have destroyed 150 Orthodox churches and monasteries in the past six years will have far-reaching consequences for peace and order in Montenegro.”

Now what in God’s name could they mean by that?