His Holiness Porfirije, Serbian Patriarch served the Holy Hierarchical Liturgy in the church of St. Simeon the Myrrh-Streaming in New Belgrade, on August 29, 2021.
“So far, I have not said a single word about what is happening in Montenegro. We are really very sad and we recognize the modern mechanism of thesis replacement where you declare someone black in advance, where you declare him a provocateur, creator of all possible problems and then create a legitimate right to restrain him from leading the way of his freedom which is love at the same time. Namely, for one normal, natural thing according to which the Church works, and that is the enthronement of a Bishop, and in this particular case, Orthodox metropolitans have been enthroned in Cetinje for centuries, someone declared that it should not be so, although we now have no other solution because we implement what is natural and normal, and we are defined as ‘someone who imposes something by force’ and as ‘someone who does not understand the situation’ and as ‘someone who provokes’. It is as if someone were to say to you: `You cannot breathe air because that air does not belong to you!` And you cannot breathe without breathing, because it is a natural and normal thing. The enthronement and everything that the Church does is always in the spirit of the words of Christ, in the spirit of that which is based on faith and prayer, in the spirit of calmness and in the spirit of love. The Church acts and works always and exclusively from the Gospel. By its nature, it is not there to resolve any political misunderstandings, it is not even there to influence them, let alone make political decisions,” the Patriarch Porfirije said .
“The Church is not here to deal with state issues. The Church is the body of Christ, which means the community of all those who are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The body of Christ in which, in the words of the apostle Paul, “there are no Greeks or Jews.” Let everyone be what they want according to their conscience, let them belong to whomever they want and let them organize their life in the best possible way, but if he is Christ’s and if he listens to the word of Christ, then he will always be a witness of peace,” Patriarch Porfirije stressed.
