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Sandro Magister reports in Chiesa (thanks to Sparta):
ROMA - During the last week of November, two more Orthodox Christian churches were attacked and damaged in Kosovo - in Gornja Brnjica, and in Susica. Neither was protected by KFOR, the military force under NATO command that maintains order in the region.Since the war ended with the defeat of the Serbs in 1999, more than one hundred Orthodox holy places have been assaulted and destroyed in Kosovo, many of them going back to the 13th and 14th centuries. Earlier, while the Serbian army of Slobodan Milosevic had control of the region, it is calculated that 212 of the 560 Muslim mosques in the area were damaged or razed.
In Kosovo today, the Orthodox Serbs are a besieged and endangered minority. Of the roughly 250,000 who fled following NATO´s military intervention, only a few thousand have returned. Together with the 130,000 who remained, they are herded in restricted zones and kept under constant threat. Power rests in the hands of the Muslim Kosovar Albanians. The future status of the region is uncertain. Formally, Kosovo remains an autonomous province of the Republic of Serbia and Montenegro, but resolution 1244 of the United Nations defining its status also refers to the Rambouillet accords of 1999, which appeal to the principle of self-determination of peoples in outlining the definitive arrangement of the area. And the overwhelming Albanian majority has enlisted this point in its bid for independence.
The destruction of Christian churches is part of this plan - or, at least, that´s what the local Orthodox community fears. "Either destruction, or transformation into museums," specifies Fr. Sava Janjic, vice-prior of the monastery of Decani.
This monastery is one of the masterpieces of medieval art in Kosovo, an historic cradle of Serbian Orthodoxy. It is occupied by 35 monks, many of whom have entered during the last twelve years, in a complete rebirth of monastic life. During the war, they were lavish in their defense of the Kosovar Albanians, threatened with ethnic cleansing by Slobodan Milosevic´s army. But today, it is the monks who are under constant threat. The Italian soldiers of KFOR ensure the defense of the monastery. The monks may not venture beyond the security fence to visit their faithful unless they are accompanied by an armed escort. The condition of the other 25 monasteries and churches under KFOR protection is similar. Among the most precious holy places - and the ones most at risk - are the patriarchate of Pec, the monastery of Gracanica, and the cathedral of the Mother of God of Ljevisa, in Prizren.
Artemjie, the bishop of Raska and Prizren, the highest Orthodox authority in Kosovo, laments "the inexplicable silence of Christian and democratic Europe in the face of such grave crimes committed against a Christian and European people, which the Serbian people is." And he accuses the Vatican of having been "amply implicated in the events" that produced the current situation.
Posted by Robert at August 7, 2006 10:25 AM
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Never again can the Serbs, or any other people who suffered historically from Muslim rule, be abandoned by the West -- no, not abandoned, worse than abandoned, attacked, and attacked, by those who had simply no notion of the legitimate fears of those Serbs, no understanding of what it was that drove some of them mad, no understanding of what Izetbegovic's declared plan to impose the Shari'a meant to people who still remembered the Bosnian S.S., and the centuries of Turkish rule, and the devshirme, and so much else.
See Ivo Andric's doctoral thesis on the influence of Turkish Muslim rule on the intellectual and moral development of the Balkans.
Posted by: Hugh![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 7, 2006 11:02 AM
There is a lot of history in that area that will be destroyed soon as the muslims take over. What is happening over there is just an extension of what the turkish sultans did up till the 15th century. Museums, hardly. mosques, yes. After all the statues, murals, and paintings have been destroyed, the speakers will go up and summon a whole new generation of jihadis, and what remains of Serbia will be challenged.
Posted by: arjun.sevak at August 7, 2006 12:09 PM
As has happened in the Turkish occupied areas of Cyprus, with the destruction and desecration of Christian Churches and Monasteries, so too do we see the final demise of Christian Kosovo...and all with western blessing.
Posted by: I predict a riot at August 7, 2006 12:17 PM
The Secularists are letting the Muslims be the footsoldiers in their War against Christianity........
Posted by: Voyager at August 7, 2006 1:06 PM
Crusades.
There, I've just succesfully and logically argued why we shouldn't care about what happens to Christians anywhere.
Posted by: Jesus Christ Supercop at August 7, 2006 2:12 PM
"See Ivo Andric's doctoral thesis on the influence of Turkish Muslim rule on the intellectual and moral development of the Balkans." comment by Hugh
Here are some links:
Ivo Andric's doctoral thesis,
“The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule” can be
located at a local library,
ordered as a paperback at Duke Press
or read it online via Questia
“The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule”, was a detailed examination of dhimmitude during five centuries of Ottoman rule.Posted by: miiraHis assessment of the plight of the Jews in Ottoman Bosnia, governed essentially under the ancient, discriminatory “Pact of Umar”, which was valid for the entire Ottoman Empire, included these specific observations:
“..The Jews, though fewer in number [i.e. than the Christian communities], were well-to-do businessmen and profitable targets for extortion. {Andric includes this footnote from, Levy, Moritz, Die Sephardim in Bosnien, 1911, pp. 28,35: ‘..Acts of violence and extortion by the Pashas against the Jews plunged them into the depths of darkest night…There were many unpleasant run-ins with the authorities from time to time, which however were susceptible to settlement by means of money’.}… The Pinakes, mentioned above as the account books of the Sarajevo Jews, offer a true picture in many ways of conditions as they were then. The year 1730 saw a disbursement of ‘720 puli for the mutesilim, so as to be spared working Saturdays on the fortification [note: i.e., in unpaid, forced labor ‘corvees’. Andric further indicates that Christians were deployed in such corvees on Sundays]. It was an outlay repeated in the years to come.” 10
“…In the year 1794 the Jews of Sarajevo won permission through an imperial firman to rebuild their synagogue, which had recently burned down. It hardly need be said that the usual stipulations applied. ‘No more than any of the confessions are they allowed to enlarge such a structure by so much as a jot or a tittle in the process of reerecting it’. And to the imperial firman were attached the usual formalities- permission of the vizier, permission of the kadi, two separate commissions, and so on. All this took more than two years and cost a tidy sum.” 11
at August 7, 2006 2:43 PM
It´s shameful that western supported muslims in this war. This is a shame. And we are paying now the consequences, like the killer Arkan said, years later of Bosnia and Kosovo, it would be battles in Thames River.
Posted by: Franze at August 7, 2006 3:03 PM
There is no issue that angers me more than Kosovo. If Bush wants support for anyone on his war on terror he better start making friends in the Balkans. If he lets Kosovo go it easy for anyone to believe the rhetoric on the left that Islam isn't the problem but the US. Because here you have this glaring inconsistency Bush claims he is fighting terror than in the heart of Europe he is rewarding it. The message to Bush must be this "this isn't a shitty little country that will be forgoten. This is your credibility on the line" STand up for Kosovo serbs now.
Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at August 7, 2006 4:18 PM
There is no issue that angers me more than Kosovo. If Bush wants support for anyone on his war on terror he better start making friends in the Balkans. If he lets Kosovo go it easy for anyone to believe the rhetoric on the left that Islam isn't the problem but the US. Because here you have this glaring inconsistency Bush claims he is fighting terror than in the heart of Europe he is rewarding it. The message to Bush must be this "this isn't a shitty little country that will be forgoten. This is your credibility on the line" STand up for Kosovo serbs now.
Posted by: pissedoffcanadian at August 7, 2006 4:18 PM
Posted by voyager:
The Secularists are letting the Muslims be the footsoldiers in their War against Christianity........
Those have been my thoughts exactly. It's the only way I can try to "understand" the continued appeasement of islam by the secular left. They must see islam as the way to fight Christinaity.
Posted by: adobe at August 7, 2006 4:43 PM
Whem will Moslem countries be held accountable for human rights? The West falls over itself to make accommodations for Islam, and allows hordes of Moslems to settle in our midst. They are not accountable for anything. They are purely victimized. Any time their behavior is called into question they are aghastat our bigotry and insensitivity to they religion of peace. (gag. vomit)
I think back to when the allies liberated the concentration camps in Germany & Poland and they made the locals parade through and see first-hand the horrors that were going on. If they were Moslems instead of Europeans, they would probably still be in self-righteous & indignant denial up to this very day.
- in fact, they ARE!
The Christians and Jews in the Balkans have suffered so much -admittedly at times from one another. The Orthodox of Serbia have such a magnificent school of iconography, a beautiful legacy of Byzantine-Slavonic music, and a rich monastic life. Unfortunately these things are not valued in the West.
Islam has been a curse on humanity from its bloody inception. Human life, art, morality, honesty are all casualties wherever this base system prevails.
at August 7, 2006 6:39 PM
Posted by voyager:
The Secularists are letting the Muslims be the footsoldiers in their War against Christianity........
Amen!!! and vice-versa as well. In Europe and India the Muslims are letting the Secularists be the footsoldiers in their War against Christianity.
Secularism, by definition, is at war with Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and every other traditional religion. However since Islam is also a social/political ideology, they and the secularists are willing to make common cause in their drive for total power.
Just look at how the Secularist US and Britain have waged war not only against Christianity in Kosovo and Bosnia but are complicit in the ongoing genocide against the Christians of Iraq. Their support for the "Iraqi" Kurds is just a wrongheaded as their support for the Albanian invaders of Kosovo.
See the Christian of Iraq website: http://www.christiansofiraq.com/endofchristianity.html
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/bombed.html
http://www.christiansofiraq.com/exclusionjune76.html
at August 7, 2006 8:06 PM
That should read:
"In Europe and India the Muslims are letting the Secularists be the footsoldiers in their War against Christianity and Hinduism"
Posted by: Provoslavni at August 7, 2006 8:08 PM
My opinion is that Europe really isn't Christian any more. If Artemjie thinks Europe will help Kosovo based on a supposedly shared religion, he is mistaken. Europe seems to value not offending Muslims more than it does human life.
at August 7, 2006 10:09 PM
As the jihadist advance rolls on , with nary a bleep from the dhimmi politicians , you can also see the rebirth of local nazi ideology too....
In NW Macedonia ( effectively cleansed of non ethnic albs ) the statues commemorate the partisan leaders in ww2 have been destroyed....
In neighbouring Kosovo , schools have been renamed after ww2 nazi collaborators , the entire Jewish population was torched out in 99....
Who said the nazis lost ww2?
Posted by: ewha1 at August 8, 2006 9:16 AM
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