His Grace Bishop Atanasije today (Mar 17) visited the Serb villages of Prilužje and Plemetina in Vučitrn municipality. In Prilužje the Bishop was welcomed by the Mitrovica church district administrator protopresbyter Milija Arsović with parish priest Milomir Vlašković, Mr. Zoran Rakić, the mayor of the Serb municipality of Vučitrn, and by the faithful. There were many children with their teachers and religion instructors. At the entrance to the courtyard of the newly built church of the Holy Transfiguration, four Serbian girls in folk costume welcomed Bishop Atanasije and served him with (the traditional offering of) bread and salt. Bishop Atanasije passed between two rows of children and then entered the church together with them singing hymns. Thanking the priests and the faithful for this warm welcome, Bishop Atanasije sang old songs of Kosovo with the children. After leaving the church, the Bishop spent more time with the children, jesting and talking with them.

His Grace Bishop Atanasije today (Mar 17) served a brief memorial service for the victims of the March Pogrom in Kosovo and Metohija in the crowded church of St. Nicholas in Kosovo Polje. This church was torched during the March 2004 pogrom and subsequently rebuilt. Bishop Atanasije addressed the faithful in attendance with words of hope and encouragement:

"We walk on this earth but we are guided by heaven – that is our Kosovo covenant. Good cannot be realized in a bad way. We are people of faith and people of life, not a people with a cult of the dead, not a people of hatred but a big-hearted people, a people who have the knowledge and ability to accomplish and sometimes the ability to flee but most important of all to exist in a terrible place.
 

The hegumen and monks of Crna Reka Monastery and the administrator and monks of Holy Archangels Monastery near Prizren, together with their mentor in chief, the dismissed and about to be tried hieromonk and archimandrite Simeon Vilovski will not stop with the lies and slander with which they are sullying the face and desecrating the name of Great-Martyred Kosovo and Metohija and this crucified Diocese. Due to their own guilty conscience they speak about “the danger to the whole concept of monastic life in Kosovo”. What this really means is that they proclaiming their own guilty conscience for violating the canonical order of the Church and thereby trampling of their own monastic vows as a “danger”, when in fact it is they (a total of about thirty al together, compared to the far greater number of canonically proper and monastically obedient monks and nuns in Kosovo and Metohija) who are endangering the true monastic calling and life in Kosovo.

His Grace Bishop Atanasije today served Holy Hierarchal Liturgy in the Nativity of the Most Holy Theotokos Church in the Serbian returnee village of Belo Polje near Peć with the concelebration of Vicar Bishop Teodosije and four other priests. Before Holy Liturgy, a Lesser Consecration of the church was conducted, since most of it has been rebuilt after the March 2004 Pogrom (what remains to be done is minor work on the interior and placement of a new iconostasis). Some 150 faithful from Belo Polje Goraždevac, Peć and surrounding Metohija villages took part in the Holy Liturgy and many of them also took communion. Also at the Holy Liturgy were sisters of the Peć Patriarchate and monks from Visoki Dečani Monastery, as well as the commander of the Italian KFOR troops in Metohija, Colonel Vincenzo Grasso.

Bishop Atanasije's Sermon in Serbian 7 MB

Belgrade, March 11 (TANJUG) - - Protosingel Simeon Vilovski was arrested today in a suburb of Thessaloniki in Greece, stated Serbian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Ivica Dačić.

Greek police arrested Vilovski, for whom an international warrant had been issued, around noon on the outskirts of Thessaloniki, Dačić told Tanjug. Criminal charges have been filed against archimandrite Simeon, the former hegumen of Banjska Monastery and dismissed bishop’s deputy of the Diocese of Raška and Prizren, with the High Prosecutor’s office in Belgrade, and he is also charged with embezzlement of diocesan funds in the amount of several hundreds of thousands of euros.

Bishop Artemije of Raška-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija, whose secretary was Vilovski, has been temporarily dismissed from duty by the decision of the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

STATEMENT OF THE DIOCESE OF RAŠKA-PRIZREN AND KOSOVO-METOHIJA

Prizren-Gračanica
March 11, 2010

The Orthodox Diocese of Raška-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija is in possession of verified information that monk Antonije Davidović of Crna Reka Monastery, against whom the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church has repeatedly sought ecclesiastical punishment for his anti-church and unmonastic behavior, and who is now finally being brought before the High Ecclesiastical Court of the Serbian Orthodox Church, is currently residing in the region of Orahovac and Velika Hoča, where he is inciting people against the Patriarch and the Church and causing turmoil with various lunatic stories, supposedly to protect Bishop Artemije. Davidović is at the same time seeking support for himself with these activities because he is under church proceedings.

A statement issued yesterday by the office of the Serbian Orthodox Church Information Service regarding the case of fugitive archimandrite Simeon Vilovski (who is hiding in Greece) and events in the Diocese of Raška and Prizren was published yesterday on the website of the Greek Orthodox Information Agency ROMFEA (www.romfea.gr). The SOC infomration service is headed by Bishop Irinej of Bačka.

We are including the English translation of the text available in Greek on ROMFEA’s website (direct link):