SPC bishop: Kosovo partition not an option

"The US is weak militarily and economically and they are but one of the many nations of this world"
(Princip, UK, 15. August 2007 11:33)

The US is the strongest nation ever existed in this earth, can simply do what ever pleases us. UK does what ever we tell her to do, no? What is Russia and Serbia goin to do to Kosovo, embargo?

ARTEMIJE IS ABSOLUTALY RIGHT. Kosova's Independence is a sure thing. But its kind of funy the way he is thinking that one day serbia will take Kosova back, not in milion years my friend. By the way he is no moderate at all and I know it because I attended some meeting where artemije was present and heard what he said, unless there was a bad translation/interpretation from serbian into english, becasue I know what language he used and he is more of an extremist than anything else.

First Trajkovic now Artemije are in favor (if they need to choose between independence and partition) of independence.
But I know that they are in favor of Great Serbia.

Princip: I applaud your sentiments on peace and coexistence, and I do not doubt that you are sincere, but unfortunately I do not believe for a second that Serbia would respect any of those. Although you wish for all the citizens - or former citizens as in the case of Kosovo- to live together etc actually show that that is not possible as long as people think the way you do. You speak of the self segregation of Albanians etc and you totaly ignore what was done to them by your people under Milosevic and shift the blame to Rugova and the Albanian population. Don't you remember the demonstration and how many unarmed Albanians were killed by your police when Milosevic abrogated Kosovo's autonomy? Who gave him the right to do that and what guarantees can Kosovo ever have that it won't happen again? Don't you remember the striking miners in Trepca and the brutal crackdown by your police? Does it seem normal to you that no less a person than Arkan wins a sit in Kosovo and that all the representatives of the Serb parliament from Kosovo were Serbs? They constituted only 10% of the population after all. If you think it's normal then why the hell are you complaining about the treatment of K-Serbs nowdays?All Rugova was doing was ask for the same conditions that your government now seems so eager to grant and Milosevic continually reneged on his promises.
And before you blame the Albanians you should maybe read some OSCE, UN etc reports on the conditions for the Albaians under Milosevic. Or are they all American agents to you?
You had absurd situations in Kosovo when an Albanian doctor could lose his/her job if he/she spoke in Albanian to an Albanian patient who didn't speak any Serbian. I wonder what you would have done in a simmilar situation. Milosevic treated Serbs like dirt let alone the Albanians. And then you had the tortures and maltreatments and arbitrary arrests. Would you have accepted a situation like that? So if you deny all of these and portray the Albanian reaction as self-segregation you are actually showing that there can never be a compromise and coexistence.
I had 30 K-Albanians stay in my house in Tirana during the war. 4 families. one of those had lost 5 people and another 3. The other two had been lucky.A number of those that had been killed had simply been shot in cold blood by your Serbian police and paramilitaries. The others had been killed during shellings by the VJ. (I remember the Serbs denouncing NATO whenever a missile went astray and killed a civilian - well your army did that for two years) You try and tell them that they should have Serbia's best interest at heart and that if they had just shown more common sense things would have been better.
And as for calling America a waning power...well iof that's not wishfull thinking I don't know what is.

Serbs are set that they will not accept anything more than autonomy, therefore talks are destined to fail!

Surprise surprise,Bishop Artemije came out with his politic and patriotic views.
He supported Milosevic too, on wars with any ex republic but was not good move.
What goes around comes around.

I agree wholeheartedly that partition is totally wrong being it 15%, 5% or 1% - partition is partition!

But I respectfully disagree with some of the sentiments put forth by His Honour Bishop Artimjie. The Serbian delegation must be open minded and enter the talks with all discussions under the banner that all options and suggestions are without prejudice i.e. stating & discussing them does not imply final acceptance. Show the whole world that Serbia 07 is a partner in the whole world and wishes to resolve it's issues with the help of all based on the principles that provide security and guarantees sovereignty to all member nations of the UN - Serbia's sovereignty is on the same basis that all others are and to force a partition be it 15%, 5% or 1 % will continue to have repercussions to all states!

Yes it is noticeable that the US has given assurances to the ethnic-Albanians that they will get their unilateral declaration recognised by the US if the talks fail. But who is the US and what value are their promises and assurances?

The US is weak militarily and economically and they are but one of the many nations of this world - yes a key and important one but very much waning in importance. It is the US who has failed the world by denying so many opportunities, aspirations & hopes that were also promised in the dying days of the close of the cold war. It is the US who have gone on a rampage through the world since those days pushing not a global hegemony truly based on freedom and democracy but an imperialistic US hegemony of self interest and gain at the expense of all others - creating a world of ever greater inequality with ever expanding distance between the "haves" and "have not's" within states and across the world as a whole.

It is good to be fully aware of their stance regarding Kosovo & Metohija but where has their promises and assurances got them thus far? Certainly not independence imposed or otherwise.

No, the Serbian delegation need to come forth in strength of principles that they stand by but open and willing to peruse, discuss all options in the talks starting from the 30th Aug. They should be willing to discuss all avenues but equally highlighting and promoting the strengths of the Serbia proposal. SWOT analysis should be done of all options and only by highlighting the many pro's of the Serbian proposal can you win over the US position for they will not go it alone - that should be one of the objectives and goals of the Serbian team. The other goal is persuading the ethnic Albanians that Serbia 07 is not Serbia 97 and even more is that Serbia 17 can be all the better for ALL it's citizens! Trust between all the peoples of Serbia can only be built by building dialogue, connections, relationships etc not by building artificial walls between one group or another isolating and creating greater animosity between each other - it was not the Serbs who separated the ethnic-Albanians from it's institutions but the ethnic-Albanians who withdrew from the state they were in during their self imposed segregation during the late 80's & 90's. Peaceful as it might have been intended by the late Rugova it denied the opportunities of building trust throughout the communities and allowed the radical elements on both sides to spread fear and hatred in the segregated communities. Economic development was always going to suffer under such conditions! Surely the last 8 years should be an even greater signal that partition will continue the economic demise as so much development is based upon the foundations of secure property rights.

This is an opportunity for the start of reconciliation and trust and the only thing stopping it is the false promise and assurances that were put forth by a waning super-power who have lost touch with their own principles and morals and sadly such consequences are spread throughout the world not just in the Balkans.

The EU can spearhead and guide these talks to find a truly European solution based on bring the whole region up to a better standard of living and equally better understanding of our own humanity.

I apologise for the length of the post and it all I wish to say today.

Strange enough. The Serbian church has realised what seems a taboo for the the Serbian society - the indipendence of Kosova is a reality, it only has to gain international recognition.
I presume that there are going to take place paralelly - the recognition of Kosova as a state entity with the handling of Mladic and Karadjic at the Hague Tribunal.
This act at the same time will mark the beginning of the healing process of the Serb society as a whole.

Religious figures deserve all the respect as long as they adhere to their beliefs and the basic principles of not lying, not cheating and not stealing.

I lost all the respect that I had for Bishop Artemije in 1997. During one of his numerous visits to Columbia University in New York, he actually claimed that there was not a single Albanian before WWII in the municipality of Besiana (Podujevo in Serbian).

It just happened that my father's side of the family can trace my roots back to the 18th century in the same municipality, and I stated that.

It is true, that the Albanian population of Podujevo has been increased at the end of 19th century - but this was a result of the settlement of Albanian refugees that were expelled from the Niš, Pirot, Leskovac and Vranje in southern Serbia by Serb troops, after the Congres of Berlin gave these areas to Belgrade.

He looked a little puzzled and with the assistance of his interpreter, attempted to correct what he said.

First Trajkovic, now Artimije. And Ivanovic, while not saying exactly that, said something last week that was a close enough hint.

Get it, Serb nationalists (and also the moderate Serbs and Albanians on this list like BgAnon and Teni who accept partition in the very good spirit of compromise): by now almost the entire K Serb leadership is hinting that they do not see partition as a compromise in their own interests, merely in the interests of Belgrade's face-saving and economic (Trepca) concerns for holding onto a bit of territory. They are saying partition is so bad that "even", from their view, some kind of supervised independence would be better.

They are right. I'm not against partiton out of principle, and certainly not out of opposition to compromise and moderation; it is just *this* partition in nits particulars that will not help anyone.

It is true that Artimije expresses this view in the most medievalist reactionary Serb nationalist way possible, and that, as posters pointed out, Trajkovic also expressed the view that withsupervised independence, Serbia could some day "regain its influence" in Kosova, possibly meaning regain it. Let them dream and let's just look at the positive side of this development. Serbia will never regain Kosova, but willlive in peace with it, and the only way its influence may indeed "grow" would be via peaceful economic relations, offering assistance to its poorer neighbour, trade, investment and cultural links via the significantly autonomous Serb regions in independent Kosova. Nothing wrong with that.

What I want to know is, if some Albanians are happy to accept partition of the north, then why do your leaders (publicly) claim to be so opposed to further expanding the kind of autonomy already offered the Serbs in Ahtissari? Like officially calling it autonomy, or even confederation (of two states within independent Kosova, not of Kosova with Serbia). The argument seems to be that Serbia could use that as a fifth column to do as they did in Croatia and Bosnia. But this si kind of absurd. You are 90% of the population, the K Serbs an understandably insecure-feeling minority. What happened in Croatia and Bosnia would have been impossible without the enormous intervention of the ex-"Yugoslav" Peoples Army, with its absolutely overwhelming superority in advanced weaponry, in order to rip out a thrd of Croatia and expel 100's of 1000's of Croats, and then conquer 70% of Bosnia and expel millions of Muslims and Croats. That si clearly not on the cards, all the more in the context that both Serbia and Kosova will be headed for the EU, and these borders will become less relevant anyway. Serbia also knows that if it did start fooling around via the Serb autonomous regions, the Albanians could do the same in Presevo.

Maybe this movement by the K Serb leadership, however stupidly sme want to express it, is the dawn of the solution.

What Archbishop Artemije is also doing is looking out for his flock. An imposed solution with international security guarantees protects his people and his churches from any further Albanian extremism.

I also like to look at it like this: The Serbian Orthodox Church is in many ways similar to the Russian Orthodox Church. Both churches predate the existance of modern nation-states, and as such have extended jurisdiction in areas today that are not part of its mother country. The Russian Church for instance, has diosceses in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Finland. In the same fashion, the Serbian dioscese has churches from Ochrid all the way up to Temesvar and Trieste! In this sense, an independent Kosovo would mean little to the function of places like Decani, Pec, Devic, and Prizren. Another major medieval Serbian church no one talks about is Lesnovo in Macedonia. There you can see one of the best preserved frescoes of Tsar Stefan Dusan. No one complains that it's in Macedonia!

The point of all of this is simple: land control may change, demographics may come and go, and politics may shift. But places of worship can, and should, remain timeless and function as places of worship, meditation, and enlightenment to is adherents.

Tex Wiler - How can it be a "Greater Serbia" as Kosovo legally belongs to Serbia, D'oH. Greater Albania more like.

Organized religion, unfortunately, has done more harm than good for humanity. We must look only as far as the Balkan wars of the 1990's to observe Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church blessing criminals recruited as paramilitary troops to go forth and kill and rape anyone not of their religious faith. Should anyone that is not a Serb believe anything he says?

Didnt realize our Albanians friends follow what the
Bishop says so religiously!

But I suppose they only do when its in their narrow self interest.

This priest he is clever guy. He knows that if partition will be than they will lose people and god. Who will beleive them? with partition of Kosova Monasteries will go forever. Marti Ahtisari plan is bettet because this plan give them right to keep monasteries and to rule their property and keep people near them. With partition they lie for Kosova as their native land will come out. Better Kosova to be independent but to keep monasteries and lie about Kosova will go on.

Dardan, maybe the bishop was so stunned because of the absurdity of your "statement"...

since you are trying to create the impression of having something to do with the illyrians by using the nick-name "Dardan" ...it shows where you are standing when it comes to facts.
you have nothing, no connection whatsoever with the ancient illyrians, you believe that to be, but US-american archeologists have crushed the last doubts about it in the late 1980´s.

trying to provoke is a very weak weapon.

There are many samples of countries, including western democracies, where you can talk about the negative effects or impact of the religion at the works of the government institutions and Serbia is not exempt either. However what I find troubling about the Bishop Artemije, and with what I strongly disagree and had a chance to convey to him this personally, is his characterization of Kosovo Albanians (particularly making up false claims of some sort of link between Kosovo and Islamic terrorist, which with all due respect make him appear very shallow for a Bishop, I mean he should know better ...) and his consent with Milosevic policies prior the NATO campaign.

It is on many of the churches under the jurisdiction of Bishop Artemije that Serb military, paramilitary and police forces received "God's" blessing before they undertook notorious campaigns against the Kosovo Albanian civilians (many of you still deny this, but if you want reconciliation between two nations the first step on your behalf would be to reflect on this and try to come to terms with this fact and stop coming up here to say they did it to us first so we did it to them now), and yet Bishop Artemije never raised its voice against these practices. I have no illusions about the intentions of this man. He himself tells everything when he claims "Imposed independence would be looked at as a form of occupation, and every occupation of a territory lasts a period of time and ends.” His sermons, nowadays serve only one thing, and that is not to reconcile Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo but to drive a deeper wedge between the two.

I do agree, though, that no matter what happens with the final status the places of worship should be accessible to all who want to. Of all parties involved in this issue the Serb church has the least to loose. As mentioned (by Mike) already, Serbian Orthodox Church has many churches functioning outside Serbia today, as far as Trieste, and there are no interference with functioning of these churches. Such will be the case with churches remaining in Kosovo (particularly since authorities in Pristina will have to adhere to the Ahtisaari plan in the end, which stipulates for far more privileges for the Serb church in Kosovo than it has in ... lets say Macedonia).

"... and every occupation of a territory lasts a period of time and ends,”

Now Bishop can you think again about what you just said and ask yourself why this is happening in Kosova/o? As you said every occupation of every occupation of a territory lasts a period of time and ends. Serbia's occupation of Kosova/o lasted for about 90 years, and now its ending.

As a man of God Bishop, lets suppose yo are one, you should be talking about God. Politics is not for Priests.

"Since we don't have no connection with ancient illyrians",can somebody here tell me,from where Albanians come from?
They have to come from somewhere as we(Albanians) were in Balkans for many centuries!
Maybe we are from a different planet!!!

Serbs should open their eyes and think realisticly,,
Kosova has gone and that is reality, Kosova is an indepedent state,,
However, in any scenario Serbia will have more losses by any enforcment to get Kosova back, then to agree and move forward by having Kosova as its market in stead of teritory.
I also believe that Serbia needs Kosova for different reasons, mentioned so many times on media, BUT this is not the way how to get it.

"...since you are trying to create the impression of "having something to do with the illyrians by using the nick-name "Dardan" ...it shows where you are standing when it comes to facts. "

Please quit with your diversions from the real issue here.

Just like in the past, you are trying to dig your nails into something totally irrelevant to the subject. (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/comments.php?nav_id=42512)

We had these discussions before… we are not talking about Illyrians at all.

The analogy that you use with my name is like me accusing you of trying to associate yourself with the "Jovan" Fragrances (and the fragrances are not a topic of this discussion).

"Can someone here tell me, from where Albanians come from"? Louie, follow the linguistic trail and then you will have your answer. It is closer than you think (No I don't mean Slavic or Greek).

First Trajkovic now Artemije are in favor (if they need to choose between independence and partition) of independence.
But I know that they are in favor of Great Serbia.

Surprise surprise,Bishop Artemije came out with his politic and patriotic views.
He supported Milosevic too, on wars with any ex republic but was not good move.
What goes around comes around.

ARTEMIJE IS ABSOLUTALY RIGHT. Kosova's Independence is a sure thing. But its kind of funy the way he is thinking that one day serbia will take Kosova back, not in milion years my friend. By the way he is no moderate at all and I know it because I attended some meeting where artemije was present and heard what he said, unless there was a bad translation/interpretation from serbian into english, becasue I know what language he used and he is more of an extremist than anything else.

"The US is weak militarily and economically and they are but one of the many nations of this world"
(Princip, UK, 15. August 2007 11:33)

The US is the strongest nation ever existed in this earth, can simply do what ever pleases us. UK does what ever we tell her to do, no? What is Russia and Serbia goin to do to Kosovo, embargo?

Serbs are set that they will not accept anything more than autonomy, therefore talks are destined to fail!

I agree wholeheartedly that partition is totally wrong being it 15%, 5% or 1% - partition is partition!

But I respectfully disagree with some of the sentiments put forth by His Honour Bishop Artimjie. The Serbian delegation must be open minded and enter the talks with all discussions under the banner that all options and suggestions are without prejudice i.e. stating & discussing them does not imply final acceptance. Show the whole world that Serbia 07 is a partner in the whole world and wishes to resolve it's issues with the help of all based on the principles that provide security and guarantees sovereignty to all member nations of the UN - Serbia's sovereignty is on the same basis that all others are and to force a partition be it 15%, 5% or 1 % will continue to have repercussions to all states!

Yes it is noticeable that the US has given assurances to the ethnic-Albanians that they will get their unilateral declaration recognised by the US if the talks fail. But who is the US and what value are their promises and assurances?

The US is weak militarily and economically and they are but one of the many nations of this world - yes a key and important one but very much waning in importance. It is the US who has failed the world by denying so many opportunities, aspirations & hopes that were also promised in the dying days of the close of the cold war. It is the US who have gone on a rampage through the world since those days pushing not a global hegemony truly based on freedom and democracy but an imperialistic US hegemony of self interest and gain at the expense of all others - creating a world of ever greater inequality with ever expanding distance between the "haves" and "have not's" within states and across the world as a whole.

It is good to be fully aware of their stance regarding Kosovo & Metohija but where has their promises and assurances got them thus far? Certainly not independence imposed or otherwise.

No, the Serbian delegation need to come forth in strength of principles that they stand by but open and willing to peruse, discuss all options in the talks starting from the 30th Aug. They should be willing to discuss all avenues but equally highlighting and promoting the strengths of the Serbia proposal. SWOT analysis should be done of all options and only by highlighting the many pro's of the Serbian proposal can you win over the US position for they will not go it alone - that should be one of the objectives and goals of the Serbian team. The other goal is persuading the ethnic Albanians that Serbia 07 is not Serbia 97 and even more is that Serbia 17 can be all the better for ALL it's citizens! Trust between all the peoples of Serbia can only be built by building dialogue, connections, relationships etc not by building artificial walls between one group or another isolating and creating greater animosity between each other - it was not the Serbs who separated the ethnic-Albanians from it's institutions but the ethnic-Albanians who withdrew from the state they were in during their self imposed segregation during the late 80's & 90's. Peaceful as it might have been intended by the late Rugova it denied the opportunities of building trust throughout the communities and allowed the radical elements on both sides to spread fear and hatred in the segregated communities. Economic development was always going to suffer under such conditions! Surely the last 8 years should be an even greater signal that partition will continue the economic demise as so much development is based upon the foundations of secure property rights.

This is an opportunity for the start of reconciliation and trust and the only thing stopping it is the false promise and assurances that were put forth by a waning super-power who have lost touch with their own principles and morals and sadly such consequences are spread throughout the world not just in the Balkans.

The EU can spearhead and guide these talks to find a truly European solution based on bring the whole region up to a better standard of living and equally better understanding of our own humanity.

I apologise for the length of the post and it all I wish to say today.

Strange enough. The Serbian church has realised what seems a taboo for the the Serbian society - the indipendence of Kosova is a reality, it only has to gain international recognition.
I presume that there are going to take place paralelly - the recognition of Kosova as a state entity with the handling of Mladic and Karadjic at the Hague Tribunal.
This act at the same time will mark the beginning of the healing process of the Serb society as a whole.

Princip: I applaud your sentiments on peace and coexistence, and I do not doubt that you are sincere, but unfortunately I do not believe for a second that Serbia would respect any of those. Although you wish for all the citizens - or former citizens as in the case of Kosovo- to live together etc actually show that that is not possible as long as people think the way you do. You speak of the self segregation of Albanians etc and you totaly ignore what was done to them by your people under Milosevic and shift the blame to Rugova and the Albanian population. Don't you remember the demonstration and how many unarmed Albanians were killed by your police when Milosevic abrogated Kosovo's autonomy? Who gave him the right to do that and what guarantees can Kosovo ever have that it won't happen again? Don't you remember the striking miners in Trepca and the brutal crackdown by your police? Does it seem normal to you that no less a person than Arkan wins a sit in Kosovo and that all the representatives of the Serb parliament from Kosovo were Serbs? They constituted only 10% of the population after all. If you think it's normal then why the hell are you complaining about the treatment of K-Serbs nowdays?All Rugova was doing was ask for the same conditions that your government now seems so eager to grant and Milosevic continually reneged on his promises.
And before you blame the Albanians you should maybe read some OSCE, UN etc reports on the conditions for the Albaians under Milosevic. Or are they all American agents to you?
You had absurd situations in Kosovo when an Albanian doctor could lose his/her job if he/she spoke in Albanian to an Albanian patient who didn't speak any Serbian. I wonder what you would have done in a simmilar situation. Milosevic treated Serbs like dirt let alone the Albanians. And then you had the tortures and maltreatments and arbitrary arrests. Would you have accepted a situation like that? So if you deny all of these and portray the Albanian reaction as self-segregation you are actually showing that there can never be a compromise and coexistence.
I had 30 K-Albanians stay in my house in Tirana during the war. 4 families. one of those had lost 5 people and another 3. The other two had been lucky.A number of those that had been killed had simply been shot in cold blood by your Serbian police and paramilitaries. The others had been killed during shellings by the VJ. (I remember the Serbs denouncing NATO whenever a missile went astray and killed a civilian - well your army did that for two years) You try and tell them that they should have Serbia's best interest at heart and that if they had just shown more common sense things would have been better.
And as for calling America a waning power...well iof that's not wishfull thinking I don't know what is.

First Trajkovic, now Artimije. And Ivanovic, while not saying exactly that, said something last week that was a close enough hint.

Get it, Serb nationalists (and also the moderate Serbs and Albanians on this list like BgAnon and Teni who accept partition in the very good spirit of compromise): by now almost the entire K Serb leadership is hinting that they do not see partition as a compromise in their own interests, merely in the interests of Belgrade's face-saving and economic (Trepca) concerns for holding onto a bit of territory. They are saying partition is so bad that "even", from their view, some kind of supervised independence would be better.

They are right. I'm not against partiton out of principle, and certainly not out of opposition to compromise and moderation; it is just *this* partition in nits particulars that will not help anyone.

It is true that Artimije expresses this view in the most medievalist reactionary Serb nationalist way possible, and that, as posters pointed out, Trajkovic also expressed the view that withsupervised independence, Serbia could some day "regain its influence" in Kosova, possibly meaning regain it. Let them dream and let's just look at the positive side of this development. Serbia will never regain Kosova, but willlive in peace with it, and the only way its influence may indeed "grow" would be via peaceful economic relations, offering assistance to its poorer neighbour, trade, investment and cultural links via the significantly autonomous Serb regions in independent Kosova. Nothing wrong with that.

What I want to know is, if some Albanians are happy to accept partition of the north, then why do your leaders (publicly) claim to be so opposed to further expanding the kind of autonomy already offered the Serbs in Ahtissari? Like officially calling it autonomy, or even confederation (of two states within independent Kosova, not of Kosova with Serbia). The argument seems to be that Serbia could use that as a fifth column to do as they did in Croatia and Bosnia. But this si kind of absurd. You are 90% of the population, the K Serbs an understandably insecure-feeling minority. What happened in Croatia and Bosnia would have been impossible without the enormous intervention of the ex-"Yugoslav" Peoples Army, with its absolutely overwhelming superority in advanced weaponry, in order to rip out a thrd of Croatia and expel 100's of 1000's of Croats, and then conquer 70% of Bosnia and expel millions of Muslims and Croats. That si clearly not on the cards, all the more in the context that both Serbia and Kosova will be headed for the EU, and these borders will become less relevant anyway. Serbia also knows that if it did start fooling around via the Serb autonomous regions, the Albanians could do the same in Presevo.

Maybe this movement by the K Serb leadership, however stupidly sme want to express it, is the dawn of the solution.

This priest he is clever guy. He knows that if partition will be than they will lose people and god. Who will beleive them? with partition of Kosova Monasteries will go forever. Marti Ahtisari plan is bettet because this plan give them right to keep monasteries and to rule their property and keep people near them. With partition they lie for Kosova as their native land will come out. Better Kosova to be independent but to keep monasteries and lie about Kosova will go on.

What Archbishop Artemije is also doing is looking out for his flock. An imposed solution with international security guarantees protects his people and his churches from any further Albanian extremism.

I also like to look at it like this: The Serbian Orthodox Church is in many ways similar to the Russian Orthodox Church. Both churches predate the existance of modern nation-states, and as such have extended jurisdiction in areas today that are not part of its mother country. The Russian Church for instance, has diosceses in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Finland. In the same fashion, the Serbian dioscese has churches from Ochrid all the way up to Temesvar and Trieste! In this sense, an independent Kosovo would mean little to the function of places like Decani, Pec, Devic, and Prizren. Another major medieval Serbian church no one talks about is Lesnovo in Macedonia. There you can see one of the best preserved frescoes of Tsar Stefan Dusan. No one complains that it's in Macedonia!

The point of all of this is simple: land control may change, demographics may come and go, and politics may shift. But places of worship can, and should, remain timeless and function as places of worship, meditation, and enlightenment to is adherents.

"... and every occupation of a territory lasts a period of time and ends,”

Now Bishop can you think again about what you just said and ask yourself why this is happening in Kosova/o? As you said every occupation of every occupation of a territory lasts a period of time and ends. Serbia's occupation of Kosova/o lasted for about 90 years, and now its ending.

As a man of God Bishop, lets suppose yo are one, you should be talking about God. Politics is not for Priests.

Serbs should open their eyes and think realisticly,,
Kosova has gone and that is reality, Kosova is an indepedent state,,
However, in any scenario Serbia will have more losses by any enforcment to get Kosova back, then to agree and move forward by having Kosova as its market in stead of teritory.
I also believe that Serbia needs Kosova for different reasons, mentioned so many times on media, BUT this is not the way how to get it.

Tex Wiler - How can it be a "Greater Serbia" as Kosovo legally belongs to Serbia, D'oH. Greater Albania more like.

Didnt realize our Albanians friends follow what the
Bishop says so religiously!

But I suppose they only do when its in their narrow self interest.

Religious figures deserve all the respect as long as they adhere to their beliefs and the basic principles of not lying, not cheating and not stealing.

I lost all the respect that I had for Bishop Artemije in 1997. During one of his numerous visits to Columbia University in New York, he actually claimed that there was not a single Albanian before WWII in the municipality of Besiana (Podujevo in Serbian).

It just happened that my father's side of the family can trace my roots back to the 18th century in the same municipality, and I stated that.

It is true, that the Albanian population of Podujevo has been increased at the end of 19th century - but this was a result of the settlement of Albanian refugees that were expelled from the Niš, Pirot, Leskovac and Vranje in southern Serbia by Serb troops, after the Congres of Berlin gave these areas to Belgrade.

He looked a little puzzled and with the assistance of his interpreter, attempted to correct what he said.

Dardan, maybe the bishop was so stunned because of the absurdity of your "statement"...

since you are trying to create the impression of having something to do with the illyrians by using the nick-name "Dardan" ...it shows where you are standing when it comes to facts.
you have nothing, no connection whatsoever with the ancient illyrians, you believe that to be, but US-american archeologists have crushed the last doubts about it in the late 1980´s.

trying to provoke is a very weak weapon.

"Since we don't have no connection with ancient illyrians",can somebody here tell me,from where Albanians come from?
They have to come from somewhere as we(Albanians) were in Balkans for many centuries!
Maybe we are from a different planet!!!

"Can someone here tell me, from where Albanians come from"? Louie, follow the linguistic trail and then you will have your answer. It is closer than you think (No I don't mean Slavic or Greek).

Organized religion, unfortunately, has done more harm than good for humanity. We must look only as far as the Balkan wars of the 1990's to observe Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church blessing criminals recruited as paramilitary troops to go forth and kill and rape anyone not of their religious faith. Should anyone that is not a Serb believe anything he says?

There are many samples of countries, including western democracies, where you can talk about the negative effects or impact of the religion at the works of the government institutions and Serbia is not exempt either. However what I find troubling about the Bishop Artemije, and with what I strongly disagree and had a chance to convey to him this personally, is his characterization of Kosovo Albanians (particularly making up false claims of some sort of link between Kosovo and Islamic terrorist, which with all due respect make him appear very shallow for a Bishop, I mean he should know better ...) and his consent with Milosevic policies prior the NATO campaign.

It is on many of the churches under the jurisdiction of Bishop Artemije that Serb military, paramilitary and police forces received "God's" blessing before they undertook notorious campaigns against the Kosovo Albanian civilians (many of you still deny this, but if you want reconciliation between two nations the first step on your behalf would be to reflect on this and try to come to terms with this fact and stop coming up here to say they did it to us first so we did it to them now), and yet Bishop Artemije never raised its voice against these practices. I have no illusions about the intentions of this man. He himself tells everything when he claims "Imposed independence would be looked at as a form of occupation, and every occupation of a territory lasts a period of time and ends.” His sermons, nowadays serve only one thing, and that is not to reconcile Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo but to drive a deeper wedge between the two.

I do agree, though, that no matter what happens with the final status the places of worship should be accessible to all who want to. Of all parties involved in this issue the Serb church has the least to loose. As mentioned (by Mike) already, Serbian Orthodox Church has many churches functioning outside Serbia today, as far as Trieste, and there are no interference with functioning of these churches. Such will be the case with churches remaining in Kosovo (particularly since authorities in Pristina will have to adhere to the Ahtisaari plan in the end, which stipulates for far more privileges for the Serb church in Kosovo than it has in ... lets say Macedonia).

"...since you are trying to create the impression of "having something to do with the illyrians by using the nick-name "Dardan" ...it shows where you are standing when it comes to facts. "

Please quit with your diversions from the real issue here.

Just like in the past, you are trying to dig your nails into something totally irrelevant to the subject. (http://www.b92.net/eng/news/comments.php?nav_id=42512)

We had these discussions before… we are not talking about Illyrians at all.

The analogy that you use with my name is like me accusing you of trying to associate yourself with the "Jovan" Fragrances (and the fragrances are not a topic of this discussion).