The Serbian Orthodox Church has summoned two theologians to appear before the Church Court. Their only transgression was criticizing Patriarch Porfirije and the church leadership for their blind and militant support of Aleksandar Vučić’s regime, BGNES reported.

“The main reason for this summons is my public appearances and my criticism of the conduct of church leaders regarding the current crisis in Serbia.” This was stated to RFE by Vukašin Milićević, priest and former professor at the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade, who appeared before the Church Court of the Belgrade–Karlovci Archdiocese on August 6, presided over by Patriarch Porfirije. The next day, Blagoje Pantelić also stood before the court. This tribunal is responsible for determining the guilt of priests, monks, and believers, as well as for rulings on issues such as the dissolution of religious marriages.

Blagoje Pantelić recounted that during the hearing he was not informed of the actions he was accused of, but was asked whether he felt guilty of “attacking and insulting the Assembly, the Synod, and the Patriarch,” and whether he was aware that he had violated the canons of the Serbian Orthodox Church. “I asked which canons, and the bishop who was questioning me replied that he did not know, that it was not written down, and that he was simply there to mechanically read the questions.” Pantelić, editor-in-chief of the theological portal Teologija.net, has no doubts about the reasons for his appearance before the church tribunal. “I told the truth about the people who are leading our Church today. The truth about them is disgusting, which is why my criticisms have sometimes been sharp,” he emphasized.

According to him, his criticisms were always directed at specific actions, aiming to encourage church leaders to reflect on “the pact they have made with the criminal regime of Aleksandar Vučić, which involves demonizing the student movement and all those who support it.” Pantelić explains that through his criticism he sought to “save the episcopal institution from bishops who abuse their position in the Church.”

Pantelić’s lawyer was not allowed to attend the hearing, although canon law guarantees the right to legal counsel. Before the hearing, he was transferred from his Vranje diocese to the Belgrade–Karlovci archdiocese without being informed. Pantelić believes that the leaders aim to “steal all freedom from the Church so that they can continue accumulating power and money without hindrance.”

The punishment seems to have been prearranged for the two theologians even before the hearing: a ban on receiving communion — the harshest penalty the Church can impose on a believer. “If the price of participating in the liturgy and receiving communion is humble submission to the evil that has devastated our society, then that communion loses all meaning,” responded Vukašin Milićević.

He has already lost his position at the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade after refusing to withdraw his views, which the church leadership disapproved of. He was among a group of professors and assistants at the Orthodox Theological Faculty disciplined in 2017 for publicly calling for the theory of evolution not to be removed from the education system. Milićević had already been suspended from his priestly duties, lost his parish, and was dismissed as editor-in-chief of the church radio station Slovo Ljubve (“Word of Love”).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, he criticized the opinion of some priests that receiving communion with a shared spoon was the only proper and entirely safe method. He also criticized the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church for interfering in the election of the dean of the Faculty of Theology. For him, the initiation of proceedings before the Church Court is a sign that the Church leadership maintains clientelist relations with the regime — relations that are fundamentally corrupt.

“The Church presents itself as a tribal clerical elite whose discourse of self-sacrifice serves to justify all the nationalist excesses committed in the name of this people over the past 40 years,” said Vukašin Milićević, adding that the term “excesses” is too weak and that in fact these were “very specific crimes and unlawful acts that have written one of the most shameful pages in the history of our people.”

In March, six bishops publicly distanced themselves from the comments of Metropolitan David of Kruševac, who wrote that students were under the control of “janissaries training them to become Serbian Ustaše and new demons.”

Metropolitan Grigorije of Düsseldorf strongly disagreed with this condemnation of the student protests. He welcomed the students traveling by bicycle to European institutions in Strasbourg and Munich, stating that they are “the vanguard not only of Serbia, but of all Europe.” Religious analyst Draško Đenović, however, believes that by summoning the two theologians, the Church wanted to demonstrate that “no one can oppose it.”

“This is a message to other believers, priests, and monks, telling them to bow their heads, because they are not here to think, but simply to nod to whatever the leaders say,” he said. Commenting on the appearance of the two theologians before the Church Court, Đenović noted that this has not been the case for some priests or bishops convicted of pedophilia or financial misconduct.

So far, the persecution of the two theologians has been met with public indignation and deafening silence from the Church, but official charges and a trial may follow. Theologian Blagoje Pantelić says he expects the disregard for canonical rules to continue, but at the same time, as an incurable optimist, he also hopes that Patriarch Porfirije will put an end to this Kafkaesque trial with his own resolution. |BGNES