wfn.org | Serbian Church Renews Call for Milosevic to Step Down

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

19-August-1999 
99271 
 
    Serbian Church Renews Call for Milosevic to Step Down 
 
    Opposition Rally Set for Aug. 19 
 
    by Ecumenical News International 
 
BELGRADE - The bishops of Yugoslavia's biggest church, the Serbian Orthodox 
Church, have called on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to hand over 
power to a transitional government, which they hope will restore the 
country's economy and hold extraordinary elections. 
 
    The demand by the church follows a call in June at the end of NATO's 
11-week bombing campaign against the Belgrade government, for President 
Milosevic's resignation. 
 
    The church plays an important social and cultural, as well as 
religious, role in Serb society.  In the early 1990s, the church was often 
criticized by the West for allegedly supporting the Serb military cause. 
But in recent years its leaders have become prominent opponents of the 
policies of President Milosevic's government. 
 
    According to reports from the BBC and other international agencies, the 
head of the church, Patriarch Pavle, met with opposition leaders on Aug. 9. 
The next day the church's bishops appealed directly to the president, 
asking him to hand over power to a transitional government. 
 
    However the church has declined to participate in a major 
anti-government protest planned for Aug.19 in front of the parliament 
building in Belgrade.  According to the BBC, the church is giving "moral 
support to the opposition movement, but nothing more." 
 
    An opposition leader, Zoran Djindjic, head of the Democratic Party, had 
earlier suggested that the church would take part in the Aug. 19 protest. 
 
    Archbishop Artemije of Kosovo, who has been highly vocal in his 
criticisms of the government, appeared on television to read out the 
statement by the church's bishops.  He repeated the church's appeal to 
Milosevic and to the president of Serbia, Milan Milutinovic, to resign and 
make way for new leaders.  He also called for extraordinary early 
elections. 
 
    But Archbishop Artemije said that Patriarch Pavle could not join the 
Aug. 19 protest "because we believe that such a gathering is not the place 
for the head of our church to express his views.  This appeal is a 
sufficient message for those who are willing to listen." 
 
    However, President Milosevic has branded demands by his critics for his 
resignation as part of a NATO plan to undermine the country.  According to 
a Swiss news agency, Agence de Presse Internationale Catholique, an 
ultra-nationalist Serb leader, Vojislav Seselj, warned the Orthodox Church 
against collaborating with the "flunkies of the United States" in Serbia - 
referring to opposition politicians.  Seselj said that by opposing 
President Milosevic, the church was going against the wishes of the Serbian 
people. 
 
    According to CNN, Serbia's leading opposition figures - whose 
differences have for several years prevented the formation of effective 
opposition to the Milosevic government - agreed that the church could play 
a crucial role in overturning the government, and was the only institution 
capable of uniting the Serbian people. 
 
    "The church is the only institution in Serbia with credibility now, and 
it has pledged to take an active role in the forthcoming political 
process," according to Democratic Party leader Djindjic, though he was 
speaking before the church announced its leaders would not take part in the 
Aug. 19 protest. 
 
    The head of the Serbian Renewal Movement, Vuk Draskovic, said: "We now 
only have one institution, and that is our church - we all belong to it." 

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