Irinej of Bačka: Serbian Orthodox Church will not sign the Fundamental Agreement while Krivokapić is Prime Minister, he deceived Porfirije

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The Serbian Orthodox Church will not sign the Fundamental Agreement with the Government of Montenegro as long as Zdravko Krivokapić is at its head, stated Bishop Irinej of Bačka in an interview for the newspaper Pečat.

He identified the Montenegrin Prime Minister as the main culprit for the non-signing of the Fundamental Agreement.

"Unfortunately, the Fundamental Agreement has not been signed. Personally, I do not believe it will be signed as long as Dr. Zdravko Krivokapić is the Prime Minister of Montenegro. With his 'want-don't want' and 'one step forward - two steps back' tactics, he is solely 'responsible' for the non-signing of the Fundamental Agreement so far. According to his confusing and obfuscating formulation - intentionally, it seems to me, worded that way - it appears that he is 'neither here nor there', but that the Synod in Belgrade (again, that hated, yet so desired Belgrade) does not want to sign it. The agreement, he says, is 'harmonized with all the requirements arising from the practice of previously defined agreements with the Holy See and the Jewish community', and yet the Synod is 'still considering it'. Orwellian, indeed: you just swap truth and falsehood, and carry on," said Bishop Irinej.

"Deceived the Patriarch at the Patriarchate"

In an interview with Pečat, the Bishop of Bačka stated that Prime Minister Krivokapić deceived Patriarch Porfirije on May 27th, when the already harmonized Fundamental Agreement was supposed to be signed at the Patriarchate.

He said that the agreement, after multiple reviews by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Government of Montenegro, was harmonized and mutually acceptable.

"Prime Minister Krivokapić himself then announced his arrival at the Patriarchate so that the Serbian Patriarch and he would sign this harmonized Agreement, only to arrive at the Patriarchate and state something completely different - that he had not come to sign the Agreement but to 'convey greetings from the faithful people of Montenegro' to the Patriarch and the Synod (as if he, God forbid, were a bishop, not a high-ranking official of his state). So much for his word or promise, and as for the 'greetings from the faithful people of Montenegro', it is enough to replace just one single word - the word 'faithful' with the word 'working' - and everything will sound familiar," said Irinej.

Since then, as he said, Krivokapić's new statements have consistently contradicted each other.

"And the freshest variant received states that certain provisions of the already harmonized Agreement were not to the liking of the Government of Montenegro, so it amended them, without any consultation with the Synod, and sent the revised or imposed Agreement to the Synod as the text for signing. The message, therefore, is: we do not want to sign the already harmonized Agreement, but we want to sign and offer the Synod for signing a text that has never been harmonized, a text unilaterally revised and amended by us," said Irinej.

He asked the Government of Montenegro why the Serbian Orthodox Church did not offer the same Agreement to the Vatican, the Islamic, and the Jewish communities.

"All in all, no Synod and no head of the Church can allow themselves to participate in such or similar 'games without frontiers', or more precisely, cannot allow anyone to play games with it in this way. But our holy Church is, thank God, by its nature and from experience, accustomed to patience and endurance. Therefore, it will wait, and God willing, will await some more normal 'prerequisites' and some new people, and then with joy and gratitude to God, in brotherly harmony and love, sign a mutually acceptable, correct, just, and honorable Agreement," stated Irinej.