Balkanalysis.com » Blog Archives » Faced with Losing Kosovo, Serbian Church Moves to Assert Itself Elsewhere

This is a year old article, but it is an excellent analysis of Serbia still trying to exert its control over the area of former Yugoslavia. I really can't believe that Montenegrins were so pissed of at Serbia, that they voted to seperate. However, besides totally blaming the Serbs, it shows that the Orthodox Southern Slavs (Montenegrins vs Serbs vs Macedonians vs Bulgarians vs Serbs) can't get along.

Faced with Losing Kosovo, Serbian Church Moves to Assert Itself Elsewhere:

8/8/2005 (Balkanalysis.com)

The three-year saga of Jovan the Schismatic � the defrocked Macedonian puppet-monk who has been installed from afar as Archbishop of Ohrid by the Serbian Orthodox Church � seems to be winding down, which is somewhat unfortunate since it has been so entertainingly ridiculous.

-’You can’t use ‘entertaining’ as an adverb!’ �’Yeah, well you can’t go installing leaders in someone else’s country!’That is basically what the case boils down to, though incredibly enough the outside world has shown overt sympathies for the Serbian side. Absurd attempts to classify the detention of a man who claimed to be king for three years as some kind of a human rights transgression have been made by the West.

Now everyone might have been able to sit back and have a laugh - “oh, those wacky Orthodox priests, look at them go!” - had not the Serbian government unfortunately decided to get involved.

Do they have nothing better to do, one wonders? Of course, everyone gets a little crazy during the sweltering Balkan summers. But did Kostunica really have to make grave intonations about th"