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Moscow, August 11, Interfax - In a letter, which came to Moscow this week, Patriarch Pavle of Serbia thanked the primate of the Russian Orthodox Church for his support in building and restoring Serbian shrines. According to Patriarch Pavle, Alexy II has given this support ‘in the spirit of love, which has united our Orthodox sister Churches for centuries’, Interfax has been informed Thuesday by the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations. The Patriarch of Serbia’s letter has become a reply to an earlier letter of Patriarch Alexy welcoming the memorandum of understanding signed between the Serbian Orthodox Church...

On the Dormition of the Mother of God Troparion of the Feast In giving birth Thou didst preserve Thy virginity; in Thy dormition Thou didst not forsake the world, O Theotokos. Thou wast translated unto life, since Thou art the Mother of Life; and by Thine intercessions dost Thou deliver our souls from death. The great and wondrous summer holiday—the Dormition of the Holy Mother of God—from olden times has been regarded by Orthodox Christians in the light of a second Pascha. Pascha itself—the Holy Resurrection of Christ—was a turning point in the history of mankind. With His resurrection the...

BELGRADE (AP)--Serbs overwhelmingly want their republic to join the European Union, according to a poll released Friday. The survey also found that the United States tops a list of countries Serbs consider "unfriendly." The poll, conducted last week among 1,500 adults by Marten Board International polling agency, showed that anti-U.S. sentiment endures here after the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing of Serbia over the Kosovo conflict. Although the armed forces of many E.U. members also took part in the air raids that halted Serbia's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in Kosovo, as many as 78% of those polled expressed...

PETERSEN REFLECTS ON BELGRADE VISIT| 14:10 -> 17:47 March 30 | B92, Beta BELGRADE, PRISTINA, ATHENS -- Wednesday – Kosovo governor Soeren Jessen Petersen met with newly-appointed Kosovo Prime Minister Bajram Kosumi today, after spending all of Sunday and Monday meeting with Serbian officials in Belgrade. Commenting on his Belgrade visit, Petersen said that Belgrade finally understands that only dialogue with the Kosovo government regarding Kosovo’s final status can lead to positive processes in the region. Petersen briefed Kosumi on everything that was discussed in Belgrade. “It is good that Belgrade has accepted the fact that discussion for the status...

Texas longhorn If you ever have to “grab a bull by the horns” try a Texas longhorn. Considering that my first post was critical of SF Chronicle's depiction of USMC General Mattis – but somehow got into a vanity section – I wouldn’t be surprised that this too gets reclassified the same way. According to some members here, I invited the Wrath of Gods upon myself on account of: a) being new – not knowing the ropes b) having posted a vanity as my first article c) me being a pink, pro-communist, liberal threat to security of the United States...

A Serbian woman has been jailed for 18 months for marrying a dead man. Vinka Mijovic, 32, from Garas, was furious when wealthy Miodrag Tomovic, 68, died before he could marry her. So she bribed a local registrar to sign a marriage certificate saying the couple had both turned up for the wedding, and bribed two pals to be the best man and a witness to the fake event. She kept the death a secret for two weeks before suddenly announcing it and organising a lawyer to get his fortune turned over to her. But the scam was exposed after...

There is a bloc of voters that may easily decide the forthcoming election. A little over a million Serbian-Americans—their exact number is uncertain but this is a conservative estimate—are likely to vote this year in greater numbers than ever before. The significance of this group becomes obvious if we look at its geographic distribution. After Chicago, the main Serbian-American centers are Pittsburgh, PA; Cleveland, OH; and Milwaukee, WI. There are thousands of retirees in Florida and sizeable pockets in St. Louis (MO) and suburban New Jersey. In each of those states the size of the community exceeds the likely margin...

August 18, 2004 ERP KIM Newsletter 18-08-04Glas Javnosti daily, Belgrade, August 12, 2004Child healed by prayer A few hours after keeping vigil over the sarcophagus of Holy King Stefan of Decani, a nine year-old Albanian girl seriously ill with depression was completely healed by Petar PasicThe miraculous recovery of an ailing Albanian child has taken place in the monastery of Visoki Decani, one of the greatest Serbian holy shrines. This unusual event, which has nevertheless occurred countless times during the monastery's long history, was described for us by Fr. Sava (Janjic), the deputy abbot of Decani Monastery.Medication didn't help"Today our...

GERMANS PROHIBIT ARCHANGELS MONKS FROM RETURN The Diocese of Raska-Prizren received painful and shocking news today from Abbot Herman Vucicevic and priest-monk Benedict Preradovic of Holy Archangels Monastery who met today with the German military commander in Prizren, Colonel Hintelmann. The monks asked Hintelman to enable their return to the ruins of Holy Archangels as soon as possible, saying they would stay under a tent at first and restore the monastery itself over time. Colonel Hintelmann categorically stated that return is impossible "for security reasons", adding that if the monks should try to return on their own "before a political...

New York/Belgrade, March 15, 2004 - An exhibition of Byzantine art with more than 300 items will be organised at the Metropolitan Museum in New York from March 23 to July 4. The loan exhibition also includes items from the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the National Museum in Belgrade. The exhibition entitled "Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557)" is to be held at the Special Exhibition Galleries - The Tisch Galleries, the Metropolitan Museum website announced. The Serbian Orthodox Church announced that among the exhibits will be King Milan's mantle from 1300, Eulogy to Prince Lazar - Jefimija's...

<p>As if the difficulties of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't bad enough, now Kosovo is back in the headlines.</p> <p>On March 24 five years ago, President Clinton ordered the bombing of Serbia to get that country's government, led by Slobodan Milosevic (currently on trial at the Hague as a war criminal), to stop oppressing the Albanian majority in Kosovo, a province of Serbia then and now.</p>

LONDON -- Tuesday – Prince Charles has pledged 650,000 euros for the reconstruction of the Serbian Orthodox Hilandar Monastery in Greece, after fire devastated the fourteenth century building earlier this month. The prince is a regular visitor to the Holy Mount, where the monastery is located. An estimated seven million euros is needed for the reconstruction. The Serbian government has said it will provide one million euros.

FOR SALE AGE 3 By Graham Johnson With her big blue eyes and cute smile, four-year-old Angela would tug at the heartstrings of any parent. But like her five-year-old brother Aco and their friend Jovanna, blonde Angela is up for SALE to anyone with enough cash to buy her. Incredibly, the head of a British-funded charity is at the centre of this despicable trade. The children, some as young as three, are snatched from their parents and sold for as little as £300. Some are feared to have been taken as child sex slaves. Others are put up for illegal...

Kosovo's terrorists continue to wage war In the midst of conflicts in Southwest Asia and the Mid dle East, I cannot help but wonder: Whatever happened to the Balkans? We Americans spent more than a decade listening to and watching CNN and BBC clips of the war-torn region and the countless war crimes that had taken place at the hands of various ethnic groups. What about Kosovo? A 78-day bombing campaign was undertaken to "liberate Kosovo's ethnic Albanian population" from the hands of "terror-invoking Serbs." Why was there no media follow- up of the accomplishments of peace-loving and newly liberated...

<p>An outgoing deputy prime minister, Nebojsa Covic, said voters had punished the reformist government for failing to raise living standards.</p> <p>"Living standards." There’s always an excuse for hatred, it seems: "We supported Hitler because the economy was bad," or "We didn’t oppose Stalin because he kept order." The behavior of many Serbians over the last decade sickens me. Remember the TV images of Serbian youth holding rock concerts in support of their soldiers’ genocidal activities in Kosovo? Just to set the record straight, I’ll once again remind people of the blood that some (not all) Serbians have on their hands.</p>

Vranje(B92) - Before the Vranje Municipal Court's investigating judge, Bishop Pahomije faced five boys who accused him of sexual abuse and abuse of official position, B92 correspondent reports. After the confrontation, lawyer of one of the boys Dragan Nikolic told the press that his client has irrefutably proven that Bishop Pahomije sexually abused him on several occasions. Judge in the case is expected to hold a press conference today.

SARAJEVO, March 24 (AFP) - NATO-led troops raided the home of an Orthodox priest on Sunday as part of a campaign to hunt out illegally-held arms, but found no weapons, SFOR spokesman Scott Lundy said. Father Novice Cebic told AFP by telephone that around 15 people entered his home in the southeastern Bosnian town of Kopaci and searched the house for an hour as the priest's wife and three children stood by. They even looked in the washing machine, Cebic said. The NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR) said they were acting on a tip off and admitted finding nothing. SFOR has...