Serbs plan to build church overseeing Sarajevo

Friday, May 16, 2008

SARAJEVO: Bosnian Serb Government said it would financially support the initiative of the Association of Prisoners of War to build a memorial Orthodox church on a hill above Bosnia’s Muslim- dominated capital Sarajevo, Bosnian media reported on Thursday.

The media quoted Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik as saying the government would give its support for the church on the Zlatiste Hill on the eastern side of Sarajevo, as a memorial to all Serbs killed by Muslims in Sarajevo during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Association of Prisoners of War of the Bosnian Serb entity, the Srpska Republic, presented in March this year its plan to build a 26-metre-high and 18-metre-wide cross on the same location. The initiative provoked sharp reactions in Sarajevo and the city’s authorities warned that the cross as the most visible feature of the Sarajevo skyline would only harm the process of reconciliation among people of different ethnicities.

Bosnian Serb associations and authorities, however, did not give up the plan. Premier Dodik said the initiative should not be considered as a provocation, ‘since other religious communities build many religious objects throughout the country.’

A memorial church instead of a cross overseeing Sarajevo, according to Branislav Dukic of the war prisoners association, was suggested by Orthodox Church religious officials.

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