Medvedev talks SPC churches in Kosovo

11 June 2008 18:46 Source: Tanjug

MOSCOW -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and UNESCO chief Koichiro Matsuura spoke about the restoration of the Serb churches in Kosovo, reports say.

Matsuura met with Medvedev in Moscow on Wednesday on the sidelines of the 10th World Congress of the Russian Press.

Scores of Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) churches, monasteries and other cultural monuments, some of from the UNESCO World Heritage list, have been damaged or destroyed by ethnic Albanians in the province since 1999.

"We have already taken up the restoration with the participation of many European countries and the United States, and I explained to President Medvedev that if Russia is ready to join us it will be welcomed," Matsuura said in a statement for Tanjug news agency.

The UNESCO director-general spoke about the same subject as he met with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexei II.

The Russian patriarch said that the Russian Orthodox Church, in cooperation with the SPC, backs UNESCO' initiative for the reconstruction of the Orthodox heritage in Kosovo.

But he pointed out that after they are restored, the holy Orthodox sites in should be returned to their legal owner.

"There should not be a repeat of the experiences with the Council of Europe, under whose auspices the restoration of several churches in the province of Kosovo is being carried out," Alexei II said.

He added that the SPC is unable to control this process and that the churches are not returned to their legal owners, but are declared "the architectural and cultural heritage of Kosovo."

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