wfn.org | Russian Patriarch Visits Belgrade, Accusing NATO of Brutality

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

23-April-1999 
99163 
 
    Russian Patriarch Visits Belgrade, 
    Accusing NATO of Brutality 
 
    by Andrei Zolotov 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
MOSCOW--During a one-day visit to Belgrade on April 20, Patriarch Alexei 
II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has condemned NATO, claiming its 
bombing campaign is not intended to protect lives but to impose a new world 
order based on "brute force." 
 
    Without naming individual countries, he also rebuked the leading 
countries in the NATO alliance - accusing them of trampling on the rights 
of countries which hold values different from theirs. 
 
    The patriarch also called on the Serbs - who have strong religious and 
ethnic links with Russia - to establish a "just peace" in Kosovo, prevent 
further deaths and provide for the return of refugees to the war-torn 
province.  The Russian church leader, in one of his speeches in Belgrade, 
spoke out for the rights of the ethnic Albanians to live in Kosovo, which 
he described as a "sacred land" for Serbian culture. 
 
    "Only peace with justice can be enduring," he told thousands of Serbs 
at a church service.  "Therefore, I ask and beseech you today to do 
everything to let the nations know the  kindness of your hearts, so that 
old Kosovo, this historic  and sacred land for the Serbian people, may no 
longer be defiled by fratricide.  Help the peaceful and well-intentioned 
people who have left their homes to return there.  Ensure that 
reconciliation and unity may reign.  Then nobody will be able to rebuke 
you for sinful actions in an attempt to justify one's own sin." 
 
    After tense last-minute preparations and negotiating a safe air 
corridor from Moscow, Patriarch Alexei travelled to Belgrade early on April 
20 both to demonstrate solidarity with the Serbian Orthodox Church and to 
present a peace plan to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. The plan 
calls for the cessation of NATO bombings and the simultaneous withdrawal 
from Kosovo of the Serbian military and the Kosovo Liberation Army. 
 
    The patriarch spent several hours with President Milosevic and his 
family, and part of the meeting was shown on Yugoslav and international 
television.  Alexei also met with the moderate ethnic Albanian leader, 
Ibrahim Rugova, who is in Belgrade. 
 
    The highlight of the patriarch's visit was a service - including a 
prayer for peace - led by the Russian patriarch and his Serbian host, 
Patriarch Pavle, at Belgrade's Saint Sava Cathedral.  Tens of thousands of 
Serbs, including government officials and the leaders of Yugoslavia's main 
religious organizations, filled the church and the area surrounding it, 
many of them holding candles. 
 
    The celebration was particularly poignant as April 20 was Radonitsa - a 
day when Orthodox Christians remember the dead.  In a speech after the 
liturgy, Patriarch Alexei said he was praying for all the victims of the 
war, Serbs and non-Serbs, Orthodox and non-Orthodox. 
 
    Expressing the sense of frustration felt by many Russians because of 
NATO's campaign and  its dominance by the United States and its closest 
allies, he said, "We have become witnesses to an action of glaring 
lawlessness as a handful of powerful and rich countries, who dare consider 
themselves to be the measure of good and evil, trample upon the will of the 
people who wish to live differently.  Bombs and missiles are pouring down 
on this land, not because they [NATO] seek to defend anyone.  The NATO 
military action has a different goal -  the goal of destroying the post-war 
order, which was paid for with massive bloodshed, and to impose upon the 
people an order alien to them, and based on the dictates of brute force." 
 
    Traditional links between Russia and Serbia - predominantly Slav 
nations which share not only the Orthodox faith, but also deep skepticism 
about the West - have prompted widespread expressions of sympathy in Russia 
for the Serbs since NATO launched its military action last month. 
 
    Special prayers for "the suffering people of Serbia" are now included 
in many church services in Russia, and many parishes in Moscow are donating 
part of their regular collections to a 
fund set up by the Russian church's Moscow Patriarchate to assist the 
Serbian Orthodox Church. 
 
    Vitali Tretyakov, a leading Russian political commentator and chief 
editor of a Russian newspaper, "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" daily, told ENI that 
the patriarch's visit to Belgrade was "very important," although it might 
have little effect on NATO. 
 
    "He has to go there [Yugoslavia] by definition," Tretyakov said.  "It 
would be strange if he didn't go."  But Tretyakov also said that U.S. and 
other NATO-member leaders were "cynical" people who would not pay attention 
to Patriarch Alexei's appeals.  "If they don't care about the Pope, why 
would they care about the Russian patriarch?" he said in a reference to 
NATO's negative reaction to calls by church leaders for a cease-fire at 
Easter. 
 
    The patriarch returned to Russia at midnight on April 20, declaring on 
arrival at Moscow airport, "The [Serbian] people have not been broken, they 
are overcoming the difficulties facing them and not losing hope." 
 
    According to the Russian news agency, Itar-Tass, Pope John Paul II 
expressed support for Patriarch Alexei's peace initiative in a letter given 
to the Russian church leader by the Vatican's representative in Belgrade. 

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