{"id":2485,"date":"2019-12-30T09:41:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-30T16:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/?p=2485"},"modified":"2019-12-30T09:42:02","modified_gmt":"2019-12-30T16:42:02","slug":"montenegrin-police-beat-serbian-bishop-faithful-protesting-adoption-of-anti-church-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/?p=2485","title":{"rendered":"Montenegrin police beat Serbian bishop, faithful protesting adoption of anti-church law"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Despite strong protests from the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful\nof the Serbian Orthodox Church, the majority religion in the country, the\nMontenegrin Parliament adopted the anti-Church law \u201cOn Freedom of Religion and\nBelief and the Legal Status of Religious Communities\u201d yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Large crowds of Orthodox faithful took\nto the streets in several cities and towns to protest the new law, which\nresulted in the Montenegrin police severely beating His Grace Bishop Metodije\nof Diokleia and several faithful with batons, reports the official website of\nthe Metropolis of Montenegro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe bishop and individual believers\nwere knocked to the ground and beaten with batons and kicked,\u201d the site\nrelates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwo worshippers who tried to protect\nhim were also wounded. One suffered a broken hip and the other a broken\ncollarbone,\u201d the report continues. Both were admitted to the hospital in the\ntown of Pljevlja.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident occurred on the ?ur?evi?a\nTara Bridge, located at the crossroads between Mojkovac, \u017dabljak, and Pljevlja.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis act best confirmed the truth of\nthe words of Prime Minister Markovi?, who said in the Assembly that the police\nshould not use force against believers, and shows what kind of law on religious\nfreedom was being adopted, and how free the Church and the faithful people are\nin modern Montenegro,\u201d the Church site reads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every parish of the Serbian Church in\nMontenegro will develop its own committee to protect churches, monasteries, and\nshrines of the Serbian Church in the wake of the adoption of the new law that\nwill allow the Montenegrin government to seize Church property, His Grace\nBishop Joanikije of Budimlja-Nik\u0161i? told protesters in Podgorica this\nmorning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

45 out of 81 Deputies voted in favor\nof the law. There were no \u201cno\u201d votes or abstentions, as the police detained all\nthe opposition Deputies, reports TASS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ruling coalition rejected all\namendments to the bill proposed by the Serbian Church.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state favors the\nminiscule and schismatic \u201cMontenegrin Orthodox Church\u201d and has subjected the\ncanonical Serbian Church to other forms of persecution, considering\nit hostile to the country\u2019s independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the new law, \u201cAll\nreligious buildings that were property of the State of Montenegro before the\nloss of its independence and merging into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and\nSlovenes in 1918, and which subsequently did not become the property of a\nreligious community in the proper legal way, will be recognised as state\nproperty,\u201d the Secretariat-General of the Montenegrin government earlier said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hierarchs of the Serbian Church\nunderstand the law as a means to seize Serbian property to be handed over to\nthe schismatic \u201cMontenegrin Orthodox Church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Orthochristian.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite strong protests from the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the majority religion in the country, the Montenegrin Parliament adopted the anti-Church law \u201cOn Freedom of Religion and Belief and the Legal Status of Religious Communities\u201d yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2485"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2488,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2485\/revisions\/2488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svetisimeon.org\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}