‘Unholy Row’ Grips Serbian Church in Kosovo

25 August 2008 Decani _ A dispute between two Kosovo Serb bishops has escalated over who has most influence over the Orthodox Church in Serbia’s former southern province.

On Saturday, monks at the monastery in the western Kosovo town of Decani physically threw out the personal secretary of bishop Artemije. Artemije had come to the monastery to personally rebuff his auxiliary bishop Teodosije, who he claims “lives in disobedience to his superior.”

Artemije has long accused his rival, Teodosije, the Abbot of Decani, of running a ‘dual church’, but tensions intensified in Decani when church leaders said they would tolerate Artemije’s position.

A numbers of media statements from both bishops accusing one another followed on main Serbian television channels on Sunday.

Bishop Artemije went so far to blame the Decani monks of “brutally breaking his assistant's leg,” but local Serb radio KIM found out that his assistant suffered an injured toe.

Bishop Teodosije, on the other hand, accused Artemije of 'acting against the holy cannons and rules of the Church.

'"The assembly of all the bishops (of the Serbian Orthodox Church) appointed me, so only they have the powers to replace me," said Teodosije.

The Church's top executive authority, the Holy Synod, called both bishops to a hearing on Tuesday. They accused Artemije of owning three houses in Belgrade and shares in a construction company, which is against church rules.

The Synod also said in its statement that Artemije's appearance at Decani was not deeply thought-through.

But Artemije disagreed.

"The Dual authority in the Kosovo diocese has to end. Therefore our deeply thought-through decisions were made, and then resulted with an open mutiny in Decani."

An unnamed Church source told Balkan Insight that the essence of the bishops' dispute is a disagreement between Artemije and the Assembly of all bishops."

Artemije publicly negates and criticises decisions of the Church's top leadership. While he 'patriotically' defies any cooperation with the international community, even though the Church has asked him to seek their funds to restore religious sites, Teodosije follows Assembly decisions and fights for the preservation of temples and better living conditions of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo," said the source.

Artemije, who is in charge of the Kosovo diocese, is known for his hard-line statements in rejecting cooperation with the international community and Kosovo Albanian authorities, especially after the March 2004 riots.

After Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia in February he banned his clergy from any contact with people from countries which have recognised Kosovo.

His auxiliary bishop Teodosije, is the main cleric appointed by the Church's seat in Belgrade for restoring damaged and destroyed shrines in Kosovo, in cooperation with international and local Kosovo teams.

The top authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade, the Assembly of all bishops, agreed in May to renew the reconstruction programme in cooperation with the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. Artemije had stopped this in 2007. Read more: http://balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/10397

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