The Serbian Orthodox Church dismissed the duties of the Metropolitan Justin of Žica, and this is not the first time that the Patriarch Porfirije helps the government in the country when it dies. Since the beginning of the year, the relationship between the SOC and the state has been in a particularly united series.
By decision of the Church Court of the Archdiocese of Belgrade-Karlova from the Church Community of the Serbian Orthodox Church they are permanently disabled theologians Blagoje Pantelic i Vukašin Milićević. This ruling means that, for example, when they pass away, their family will not be able to bury them according to Orthodox customs. Both are believers, and Milićević was also a priest - until the decision on January 29.
"I am very honored by the high recognition given to me by the decision of the Church Court of the Archdiocese of Belgrade-Karlovica and its president, Serbian Patriarch Mr. Porfirije", Milićević told "Vreme", after this decision.
"I promise that in the future I will try to justify the trust they have placed in me with this decision and that I will continue, wherever and whenever I have the opportunity, to distort and point out the hypocrisy of the current top of the Serbian Orthodox Church, their heresies and shameful actions they caused and are causing immense damage to the church, which, in cooperation with the mafia regime, they completely usurped and subjugated to serve their criminal and warmongering goals."
The SPC initiated proceedings against Pantelić and Milićević this summer, although it was not clear why. It is assumed that the Church wants to punish them for going public and his position on the connection between the Church and the regime of Aleksandar Vučić.
"Church as an extended arm of the mafia"
After the dismissal of Metropolitan Justin, Milićević told the media that the letter of decision was a "brutally expressed threat", in a way that is completely inappropriate for communication between the Synod and a bishop.
"The secular state does not exist here. The church regime is one of the agencies of the state regime, that is, the clan that usurped the state. These are their collaborators, collaborators in a joint criminal and criminal enterprise whose sole role is to obtain some kind of religious, pseudo-metaphysical legitimation for their wrongdoings. So, these are the people who shape pedophiles, who shape war criminals, in whose ranks criminals and rapists occupy the highest positions. So, just like in in the case of this regime, it's not a church, it's an extension of the mafia," Milićević told N1.
He also says that the protests have shown that people here are to an astonishing degree capable of distinguishing "what the church should be in some symbolic sense, what the church represents in the experience of believers, from what the church is as a management structure, almost as a business structure".
He added that government representatives "have the instinct of a cockroach when it comes to survival" and that they will use every opportunity to take revenge, not only on those who have done something to them, but on those who pose a threat to them, even hypothetically.
SPC on protests
During 2025, the Serbian Orthodox Church justified the trust and finances it receives from the regime. She accused the protesting students of "they live in parallel universes" in which they "make a mockery of the sacred values".
In the announcement of the SPC, it was written that "while some students proudly carry icons and state flags, kiss them while crossing themselves, others at as many as three faculties - Organizational Sciences, Political Sciences and Law, watch silently and without protest as the same flag is desecrated and desecrated on stage, and those who cross themselves are hurled the most shameless insults".
"They roar in the streets, collect consensuses, they even have their ajvanli-pashas who train them how to become Serbian Ustashas and new villains", David wrote.
