...Vukašin Milićević
Judging by what can be read in the media (including organized crime group newsletters that like to present themselves as "independent daily newspapers" and the like), Aleksandar Vučić bishops and clergy Serbian Orthodox Church divides into "our bishops" and "our patriarch" and those who "do not curse their mother publicly just because he is the president of the state, otherwise he would have done it thirty times already". Metropolitan Ioanniki, by all accounts, belongs to this second category.
Why? Is it because he is not an honest, conservative monk of the old age, basically aloof, sometimes at a loss, but resistant to any worldly temptations, at the same time a Serb from the bottom of the bucket? It is not, because Ioannikius is exactly all that. So what's the problem? Well, that's exactly it, to say the least. Because such stubborn types are not really suitable for what it is regime Aleksandar Vučić in Montenegro necessary, especially in the absence of the Informer who was martyred by the decision of the Council of the Montenegrin Agency for Audiovisual Media Services.
Because for the regime of Aleksandar Vučić, the Serbian Orthodox Church has value only as a useful propaganda instrument with a dual function. On the internal level, its function is to legitimize the position of the regime, by calling for "unity", that is, gathering around the "president of all Serbs", and by spreading the paranoid myth about danger and the Serbian people as eternal victims. On the external, i.e. regional level, its role is to export the same propaganda product wherever the members of the long-suffering Serbia live, with the aim of raising the blackmailing potential that the Serbian regime still wields to some extent through the generation, even fictitious, of conflict potential. With the desire, of course, that this has a reverse effect, that is, that the eyes of the public in Serbia are somehow removed from the fact that the regime is in a terminal crisis.
And Ioannikije, a conservative monk of the old coin and Srbend from the bottom of the tub, obviously does not agree to that and that, beyond any doubt, is worthy of praise. First, because such instrumentalization has nothing to do with what the church, according to Christian belief, should be. Second, because for the specific church he manages, which is the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, it would be catastrophic in every sense, both in terms of the internal dynamics of its life, and also in terms of the social role and indisputable importance it has for Montenegro as a whole. Because the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral, regardless of its canonical status and traditions (or precisely with regard to them and because of them), must be a framework in which all citizens of Montenegro of the Orthodox faith can practice their faith. Especially if one takes into account an elementary fact that is often overlooked, namely, that, when it comes to the Orthodox corps in Montenegro, the issue of national commitment is actually a matter of articulating political views, and that it does not have any ethnic or cultural background that would further burden or complicate it.
GRATITUDE TO WHOM? WHO KNOWS WHO
But if Ioanniki doesn't want it, there are those who will.
Immediately after the Metropolitan Municipality of Montenegro and the Littoral issued a press release on August 5 criticizing Vučić's venomous trumpeting of Serbian integralism and church separatism, the Eparchy of Budamlje-Nikšić, headed by Metodije, the newly appointed Metropolitan and member of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, also issued a press release entitled "Expression of deep gratitude for the support of church and national unity". Acknowledgments to whom? It is known to whom.
And it is also known whose statement was found on the official website of the Serbian Orthodox Church a few moments after its publication. And so that Methodius' "Expression of deep gratitude" does not accidentally remain alone for too long in the media space of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and in order to soften even more the effect of the announcement of the reluctant Metropolis of Montenegro and the Littoral, Vučić's panegyrist on duty from the episcopate, Bishop Sergije of Bihac-Petrova, made sure the very next day with his "Public Gratitude to the President of the Republic of Serbia", as well as the unrestrained poet and deputy member of the Holy Synod of Bishops, Metropolitan Fotje, with his witty composition entitled "Montenegro Scenario", in which, among other things, it is written: "But these new Montenegrins/ have fallen in love with other values today/ they would keep up with the world order/ like Germany used to keep up with Hitler". Therefore, it is not only Ustasha students, but also Montenegrins who are Nazis.
But is there something that could be called a more strictly ecclesiastical context of what is happening in Montenegro?
It exists, but that still does not mean that we can talk about a sphere of relations and influence that have nothing to do with the all-pervading political crisis we are living through. Because the Serbian Orthodox Church has been conducting a centralization campaign for the past ten years, the political background and nature of which is unequivocally shown in "incidents" such as this one in Montenegro or the replacement of Metropolitan Justin of Žica. Quite simply, it is about the systematic and systematic persecution of the undesirables, with the aim of making the organizational structures of the Serbian Orthodox Church fully available and at the service of the Serbian regime. In all of this, the security-intelligence and criminal structures controlled by the regime (or controlled by the regime - in the end, it doesn't matter) play an important role, which was unequivocally shown in a concrete example in the research conducted by the Sarajevo CIN on the way in which the process of electing the patriarch in 2021 was supervised. Patriarch Kirill, reduced to the agitprop department of the Putin regime. Therefore, it is not surprising that centralization in the SPC is carried out according to the Moscow model. The Patriarch of Moscow, namely, has powers that the Pope of Rome has never had in history, and in the Russian Orthodox Church during his time, experts say, more than sixty bishops under the age of sixty were "retired".
THEN AND TODAY
The realization of such goals stands in the way of any kind of autonomy, from the autonomy of educational and scientific institutions to the autonomy of church structures, and especially autonomy that, speaking in church language, could be said to be "sanctified by tradition". And if it still has a foothold in the real social or political context and needs, so much the worse. All that, it is clear, is valid in the case of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral.
Because in the structures of the SPC until a little more than ten years ago, there was a high degree of autonomy, both when it comes to individual dioceses and when it comes to regional church centers, i.e. there were the foundations of what is called the "metropolitan system" in canonical theory. The autonomy of dioceses was reflected in the fact that all decisions concerning their status and the status of bishops were exclusively within the jurisdiction of the Holy Synod of Bishops. The autonomy of the regional centers was reflected in the fact that the capitals of the Yugoslav republics were the seats of metropolitans, and that the bishops from the territory of those republics formed episcopal councils under the presidency of the metropolitan.
Today, however, all the power in the Serbian Orthodox Church is in the hands of the synod, and the synod is a body that is completely sovereignly and regardless of its current composition at the disposal of Patriarch Porfirije and Metropolitan Irinej of Bačka. The Assembly, now only a ceremonial manifestation that takes place once a year and lasts only a few days, has been internally transformed into a voting machine that serves only to give the Synod's decisions a "parliamentary" form. On the symbolic level, however, the autonomy of the regional centers was further disavowed by the title reform, carried out without any clear criteria, which resulted in more than half of the bishops now being "elevated" to the rank of metropolitans, among them last year was Metodije, the bishop of Budimlja-Nikšić.
What should be expected next, that is, what could be the further development of the ecclesiastical-political situation in Montenegro?
ADDITIONAL WEAKNESS OF THE METROPOLITAN MONTENEGRO COASTAL
In short, we should expect the worst, because anything else would be naivety that crossed the administrative line that separates it from stupidity. This is what experience teaches us, including the recent case of Metropolitan Justin of Žica. So far, they have never given up and they have carried out every failure to the end. The recipe has been tested. The targeting phase, which is carried out jointly by church agents and regime and church tabloids, has already been carried out. Further expected steps are some kind of reaction from the synod, in the form of a "commission" tasked with investigating the "situation". It should not be ruled out that the whole matter at this stage could be aimed at the announced formation of a new eparchy in Boka Kotor, which would have the sole aim of further weakening the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral. A more drastic approach would be directed against Metropolitan Ioanniki personally, and there is no doubt that in the event that his Metropolitanate is located in the territory directly or indirectly controlled by the Serbian regime, this would have already been implemented.
However, whatever the duo Perić-Bulović and their boss decide to do, there are two factors that could stand in their way, which we have not encountered during the previous purges in SPC. The first is dealing with the opposition and rebellion of the clergy and believers, and it is expected that something like that could happen in the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral. They certainly wouldn't be able to cope with that, and it is likely that the fear of the possibility of such a rebellion was the reason why, albeit very reluctantly, they agreed to his election in 2021 as Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral. Another factor is the rule of law, which Montenegro not only declaratively aspires to be. Of course, the rule of law is by nature also secular, but precisely because of this, Montenegro must not allow the lives of believers who are its citizens to be governed by a clique that does it on behalf of the political wing of organized crime that has usurped the neighboring country.
All in all, "take care, Montenegrins!"
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