SRPSKA PRAVOSLAVNA EPARHIJA KANADSKA

SERBIAN ORTHODOX DIOCESE OF CANADA

7470 McNiven Road R.R. #3, Campbellville, Ontario L0P 1B0

Tel: (905)878-0043 Fax: (905)878-1909“

Holy Transfiguration Monastery

Milton, Ontario

March 27, 1999

COMMUNIQUE

“Put up thy sword into the sheath”(John 18, 11), says our Lord to Apostle Peter and explains: “For all they take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Mt. 26, 52).  

These words of our Lord wisely speak of that which is happening these days in the cradle of our Mother Church, in our Serbia. Not only because they warn those who now without any legal right are destroying a sovereign nation, that sooner or later, they will reap what they have sown, nor because they explain what is happening on the streets of Canadian cities in which Serbs live — that he who breaks the law far from his home cannot but expect that the law will slowly but surely begin to deteriorate even in his own house. These words of our Lord are perhaps most valuable because they speak of the moral side of that which is happening in and around Yugoslavia. The Lord builds His Church upon the apostles: they dare not “draw a knife”; if with democracy, with peace and understanding, America wishes to establish order in the world, she must not resort to rough and arrogant force.

      In view of these words all so-called arguments of a moral nature that we have heard before and during this aggression fail. What proportion of casualties is needed before we can honestly ascribe this agression as an act of genocide? Violence must not be crushed with greater violence, laws must not be established on the destruction of all other laws that until now have served us well. Based on these words of the Lord, upon which this civilization has rested for two thousand years, all reasons given in the name of morality by Washington, and also by those centers who have allied themselves with this shameful episode in history, and even sadly by Ottawa, represent empty rhetoric behind which can only be read unparalleled cynicism. This cynicism reached its peak not long ago when the President of the United States, during an address to the Serbian people, explained why he was killing them, why he was destroying that which had taken them years, decades and centuries to build, all the while maintaining that he had nothing against them, and that this was for there own good.

      Why are the things that are happening on the streets of Canadian cities happening? Why are the majority of Canadians shocked at what they are seeing and hearing? The answer to this is, unfortunately, no longer in the domain of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Canada.

      The Serbian Orthodox Church in Canada, around which gather approximately 400,000 Serbs living in this great country, has tried for years to bring attention to the injustice that has been done to Serbs by the political and also the military drama in the former Yugoslavia. Just as the Serbian arguments from Yugoslavia were not heard, neither were our own voices heard. When in 1995 over a quarter of a million Serbs were driven out of their homes in Croatia, out of a zone which was protected by the resolutions and military forces of the United Nations (including Canada), and when in spite of that over ten thousand civilians in just a few days, in refugee shelters, were killed, nothing was heard, neither from NATO nor from the media here. And of course, not even from the Canadian Parliament. It was the same when Serbs, in similar numbers, were cleansed out of the Bosnian Krajina. At that time Serbs in Canada went out into the streets and spoke of this, but that was not recorded anywhere.

      When, over a year ago, the question of Kosovo and Metohija was again raised, the Serbian Church spoke out. In the course of their duty to the prayerful believers and confessors of our faith, our priests knew that anger was growing amongst Serbs in Canada because of the way in which this question was treated, both politically and in the media. At the annual Canadian Diocese meeting, in the beginning of February 1998, an appeal was sent to the highest-ranking Canadian Officials. The reply came 3 months later: a letter devoid of any content. Cynicism or incompetence? Decide for yourselves. The whole past year, Serbs have marched in the streets of Canadian cities, and petitioned local Parliamentary Representatives. The Church did everything possible to ensure that protests were orderly, that declarations of the Serbs’ growing dissatisfaction reached the public and Parliament, in the hope that the politicians would properly do their part. How did they do? Like that member of Parliament who received a petition with a thousand signatures, then admitted, “I forgot “ it in my desk drawer. Cynicism or incompetence? Decide for yourselves.

      And so, year after year, everything has been such that Serbs have become, quite literally, a nameless mass in Canada. The Serbian name is avoided, even in statistics. According to statistical documentation the Serbian language is not spoken by anyone in this country. Serbs and their voice have been put into a drawer by the media and the politicians. And when it came to the end, when this aggression was launched against one sovereign European country, the first such attack since Hitler, the Serbs came out of the “drawer” on their own. That was one problem the Canadian politicians tried to resolve by pretending that it didn’t exist. That is why the answer to the question of what is happening on the streets of Canada needs to be sought in the one and only place that is accountable: Ottawa.

      It is the duty of the Church to stand by her people in the hardest of times. When if not now?! Now when the innocent are being killed, by the hundreds, when by inhuman and ungodly strikes from the sky the fruits of the labour of generations of people from that area are vanishing. When if not now? When in an instant our Holy Gracanica monastery is damaged, one of 1,087 holy Serbian structures in little Kosovo and Metohija, for so long now preserved as treasures of worldwide significance. We are proud of the dignity demonstrated by the large majority of Serbs during these protests across Canada. Even though we do not agree with the way some individuals demonstrated their justifiable anger, as in Toronto, the Church does not turn her back even on those. She does not turn her back on them, for she dare not. For the Lord says: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick” (Mt. 9, 12). That is why we take this opportunity to invite them to find sufficient strength within themselves to calm down with the help of prayer and fasting during these days leading up to Easter. However if they do not succeed in accomplishing this, for it would truly be an accomplishment, then let them at least turn to the wise example of the past — from Obilic to Princip — and no longer vent anger on the innocent. If nothing else, in these past ten years the lies and deaf ears have created an accurate picture of who is responsible: from representatives of the media to the politicians. And for that reason, prodigal children of our Church, if you strike an innocent, there will be no justification for you.

      In closing, we turn once again to the Canadian public, in the hope that this time our voice will be heard. Wake up Canada and think this through with your own head. Don’t believe everything you are told. For don’t you see that out of over a hundred countries the nations backing Clinton’s “United Nations” number less than twenty. And that number, the way the aggression on Yugoslavia is going, is decreasing? Or have you also adopted the notion that there exist peoples of greater and lesser worth? Don’t you see now what should have been apparent long ago: that this brutal act is not justifiable by any law, carried out in the name of averting humanitarian catastrophies while creating an even greater human catastrophy. By this act you have created a situation where the conflict can dangerously escalate and you have opened the possibility that tomorrow every world aggressor can attack a sovereign nation without consequences — even us in Canada. Don’t you see that one generation of politicians, in just a few years, have squandered the amazing legacy of American democracy because of which half the world for decades looked with hope to the West? Don’t you see that Canada, after this incident with its own Serbs, will never again be the same country? For even here, in our Canada, Serbs have not been alone for all these days. Many others have marched along side us every day. Wake up, Canada, and do not continue to be part of this shameful plunge into ruin. Wake up Canada, before it is too late. Wake up , Canada, Peter throw away the knife!

Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Canada

G E O R G I J E