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Fate has deakt the
Serbian nation a day which is called Vidovdan. This is
not just a date on a calendar but is rather a continuing
day, from that fateful year, 1389, up to the present. It
is the longest, most significant, most holy, most tragic
and brightest day of the Serbian nation. It contains all
the ideas of the Christian comprehension of life and
living.
Prof. Bigovic has
said: "Vidovdan has been up to recently,
and, for some is even today, Good Friday, and yet at he
same time, Easter. Those two events - Good Friday and
Easter - merged into one indivisible whole and further
understanding of Vidovdan."
Kosovo is Serbian
Golgotha. It is the Cros through which one nation entered
into eternity and uncovered the eternal and divine
dimensions of its existence. For this reason the Kosovo
oath, by which Tsar Lazar chose a heavenly kingdom, is
our only choice and path, at the same time both a victory
and defeat. Defeat is transformed into victory. fate was
endured in the hope of resurrection, and the crosing from
the earthly to the heavenly Serbia was made easier. It
was known, that following voluntary suffering comes the
resurrection, even then when it was hard to hope that it
would be so. Following two trusts, that of the Nemanjic
founders and that of the Kosovo revival, Serbia was
resurrected in its full glory as a Kingdom. We were left
with splendid remembrances, "the remembrance of
glory and heroism" until it
became the time of "discord and betrayal", until the
stranger came to take our soul, to take the holines from
our ideals and to humiliate Serbia. In this way the
Serbian nation foreswore the oath of Kosovo, it broke off
its historical memory, it accepted the most brutal and
lowest ideologies of the modern world. It destroyed the
bridges joining it to the heavens, it lost the longing
for a holy, honorable and clean life. It was left
desolate, alone and empty.
That is why today,
for some, Kosovo is illusion, a distant and cruel past, a
myth, a battle for the preservation of an empty cradle.
And we, who are today gathered together because of
Vidovdan, not for prayer or communion, but in order to
celebrate ourselves on this day, to have a good time,
music, roast meat, a dance, do not celebrate Vidovdan,
but rather ourselves. We do not help Kosovo and its holy
places in this way notwithstanding all our bombastic
speeches, with a well oiled throats. We will help it only
when we turn to God for salvation. And God is he who once
before gave Kosovo to the Serbs, and He will again if we
pray to Him and ask Him for Help, particularly now, on
Vidovdan.
Indeed, what else and
what better could we do? To shout "we refuse to give
Kosovo"?
To whom and for whom? Those who have rejected Christ, who
do not accept the oath of Kosovo, for whom "the Kingdom of
Heaven"
does not exist, these lead us and mislead us. If we speak
out, we give them support. On the other hand, if we
remain silent, again we give support to our enemies,
those who by taking Kosovo from us want to destroy the
esence of Serbianism, as well as to those among us for
whom Kosovo means nothing more than a territorial region.
Therefore there is nothing left for us to do but to
celebrate Vidovdan in the way that our "honorable Prince" declared and
then confirmed with his life: "The earthly is a
kingdom for but a time". What does it
mean? It means that we believe that Kosovo should be led
by holy men, Christians, through whose veins runs that
determination of Kosovo, who in their daily life confes
the Truth of Kosovo, the truth of Jasenovac, Jadovno,
Glina, Ravna Gore and many Serbian places of execution
where history asigned us ever newer and newer Kosovos.
The truth must, if necesary, be protected with one's
life. At least for us, in the Church, that is clear - and
a Serb is not a Serb if he is not in the Church - for it
is said: "Blessed is God who rests above the
holy martyrs".
Let us measure
ourselves and show what we are capable of in Vidovdan.
For in Vidovdan in the temporal sense the past, present
and future of the Serbian nation are combined as in space
two worlds, the visible, which becomes numerically
smaller through victims, and the invisible, which rests
on victims and sacrifice and increases. And let us treat
this Vidovdan, as if God has put us in temptation, under
examination. Will we "shorten our days for
the sake of the chosen" depends
mostly of ourselves. Therefore, all you who are in the
Church, let us pray to God, that God grant us strength,
shorten our suffering, open our hearts and minds to
eternal ideals and send us true leaders who will lead us
as our honorable prince led the Serbian nation through
illusion of defeat to glory.
O Lord above all, our
Savior, grant us the vision on this Vidovdan that we may
understand Your will, that we may follow Your path, that
we may save both Kosovo and our own souls. Amen.
In
Niagara Falls, 1998,
Bishop
of Canada, Georgije
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