Posted on 06/08/2009 5:33:13 PM PDT by Ravnagora
Decani Monastery Relief Fund, Inc. USA
My fifth pilgrimage to Kosovo/Metohija
Beloved in Christ our Lord,
May our Gracious God always bless you and ever shine His Luminous Face upon you!
I will make my fifth pilgrimage to Kosovo/Metohija during the last week in June and the first week of July, 2009.
The Decani Monastery Relief Fund must continue to offer assistance because so many people there are still greatly in need. For this reason I once again appeal to you, my beloved brothers and sisters in Christ, and beseech you to continue to support these worthy souls through our fund. Our first and foremost duty as Christians is to obey Christ’s command to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. This is how we show our love for God Who has so richly blessed us. We now have this great opportunity to demonstrate our love for God and our willingness to walk in the way of His Son, Jesus, by providing ongoing aid and support to our long suffering brothers and sisters in Kosovo/Metohija.
Despite recent economic woes, America remains richly blessed. Even in these relatively difficult economic times, we continue to enjoy advantages that are the envy of much of the rest of the world. Americans who are poor, who have lost their jobs or their homes, can tap into a social “safety net” that provides them with the basic essentials for survival. Few other societies routinely provide such assistance for their citizens. As a last resort for our destitute and most needy, we have soup kitchens and homeless shelters established in nearly every city and town. We have welfare programs that retrain the jobless for new occupational opportunities. We have headstart programs to assist the children of the poorest Americans so they can catch up educationally with their more fortunate peers. Americans can know hard times but we are always shielded from the extremes of destitution and desperation by the system of assistance programs we have created.
This is not the situation in Kosovo/Metohija. Many, many people in the region remain unable to provide themselves and their families with even one adequate meal per day. For this reason His Grace, Bishop Artemije and Bishop Teodosije have supported three soup kitchens in the region. The Decani Fund offers continuing assistance to these.
Further, a growing number of Serbians remain displaced from their former homes. These persons are now living in “containers” (the small housing units provided to the homeless by KFOR). The Fund provides additional aid to these dispossessed souls.
While in the region this year, I expect to visit at least a dozen villages. I hope to be able to offer Christian love to many people on behalf of all who continue to offer support through their generous donations to the Fund. These needy individuals and families have no one else but us to alleviate the ongoing hardship into which their lives have fallen. They have none of the social safety net programs we Americans take for granted. We are, quite literally, their “last, best hope”.
Please send whatever donation you are able to make at this time to:
Decani Monastery Relief Fund
+Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
2618 West Bannock Street
Boise, ID 83702
USA
As always, we shall remember you in prayer. We ask also that you pray for us.
Thank you!
Your brothers and sisters in Christ our Lord,
+Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes, President
His Grace, Bishop Teodosije, First Vice President
Hieromonk (Father) Sava, Second Vice President
Lois Fletcher, Secretary
Gioia Maria Frahm, Treasurer
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God Bless you and Godspeed.
Orthodox ping
Thanks very much Kolokotronis, much appreciated.
This monastery dates back to the Middle Ages.
I truly regret not visiting pre 1998/1999 war Kosovo when I was in Serbia.
It is truly a beautiful, tragic place.
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God Bless you.
God keep you safe.
Me, I’m not the one going, though I wish I was. Father Serfes is the one going to Kosovo/Metohija. I know he will appreciate the blessings.
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Glad to do it; I’ll try to help Fr. Nektarios.
The Apostle’s Fast starts next week—a time to especially remember our brothers and sisters in need. I’ll support the Decani Fund, as I have done periodically.
This is outright genocide (by UN definition – destroying the cultural heritage of a nation), and all this is taking place under EU and US sponsorship. America has become an anti-Christian bastion, favoring Muslims over Christians hands down, and atheist western Europe is flooded with Muslims.
The saddest thing is that Orthodox Christians across the world, and Orthodox countries, are keeping eerily silent as well. Not a word of protest, nothing even said before the UN, or in the European Parliament. Everyone is bought, silenced and intimated; others just don't care as long as it doesn't affect them.
There is nothing being said from the Catholic side either, or the usually Orthodox-friendly Protestants. Christian love at work/s. This is not the way to compete with Islam and the anti-Christian elements that are gaining in Europe and the US.
My friends, Christianity is dying by suicide.
Turning the other cheek is not getting us anywhere. Politically no one is concerned about this, Muslims only know one thing...
Where are the Greeks (people, nation, and /or church)? They have been the most reliable in speaking out on behalf of the Serbs, as during the 1999 NATO bombing.
The “usually Orthodox-friendly Protestants” whom I know best are the evangelical catholic Lutherans. (I used to be one!) But they are now a highly endangered species (see all the Lutheran threads on FR). So I doubt if they have any energy left for standing up for the Serbs.
May we all trust the Most Holy Spirit to give us the energy and courage to love our fellow Christians, and to speak out for them, even in the face of massive opposition!!!!
There is a well executed PR propaganda machine that does the following: It appropriates the culture of the first peoples of the land and claims it as their own. The Skopjeans are doing it with Alexander and Macedonia, and the Turks are doing with everything. The latest maneuver was this bizarre horror - read and weep:
Phokaians taking civilization to Marseille
http://forums.ec.europa.eu/debateeurope/viewtopic.php?t=10797&sid=151e661e649cd32137a9b10bd8151942
Now the albanian scum are copycatting their turk schemes-—this is an organized propaganda machine. Very few are indignant enough to protest and demand the truth - there are some doing that however. Not enough.
“Where are the Greeks (people, nation, and /or church)?”
What, exactly, would you have Greece do? Shall the Greek government launch a military attack on Kosovo? Shall the Greek Orthodox Church break communion with someone?
Greece, at great political and diplomatic cost, stood against the unprovoked and unlawful US/Nato attack on Serbia. Greece, at great political and diplomatic cost, has refused and continues to refuse to recognize the independence of the KLA terror statelet that George Bush and his fellow travelers set up and funded.
Don’t complain about Greece, HS. Make your complaints to the “conservative” American politician godfathers of the KLA regime whom the folks on this site support so vociferously!
From what I see, a majority Greeks (NOT ALL by any means) are content with accepting a load of crap in exchange for security (another fallacy) and euro lucre to keep la dolce vita going for a while.
The Church? I am as flummoxed as you are HS. the patriarch and EU for Turkey? Thrace? Albanian Orthodox Church? ad nauseum...a case of nations being chained to history.
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I’m not complaining about the Greeks, Kolo. I’m just asking for an update on what they’re doing about this in 2009.
“I’m just asking for an update on what they’re doing about this in 2009.”
They have not recognized Kosovo as a state. What else do you want from Greece?
“The Church? I am as flummoxed as you are HS. the patriarch and EU for Turkey? Thrace? Albanian Orthodox Church? ad nauseum...a case of nations being chained to history.”
What, pray tell, does this have to do with Kosovo? The Church of Greece did not create the Albanian Church, the EP restored it and everyone accepts it. Can you think of an alternative? Do you want the Archbishop of Athens trying to run that RICO operation? The EP perhaps?
In the meantime, the Church of Greece has close and continuing ties with the Serbian Church and fully supports the efforts of the Serbian Church to maintain the light of The Faith in Kosovo.
The little Albanian Archdiocese within the OCA impedes the OCA from doing very much at all to speak out in favor of our Serbian Orthodox brothers.
As an OCA member, that frustrates me a lot more than anything about the Greek Orthodox Church or about Greece. But I can do nothing about it except to pray, and (with some success) to invite my fellow OCA parishioners to attend Serbian events and vice versa.
At least our new Metropolitan Jonah has called the 1999 NATO bombing “aggression” in a public speech, and is apparently pro-Serbian and against islamic domination of Orthodox churches and peoples. That IS an improvement.
HW—there are some Greeks who actually did something! God Bless the Late Bishop Christodoulos (of Athens) for supporting these heroes.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=80998
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