American SOC bishop calls on Blinken to stop violence against Serbs in Kosovo
Bishop Irenaeus of Eastern America wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking him to “do everything in his power with the Kosovo authorities to stop the violence against the Serbs.”
The Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church reported this, as reported by a PolitNavigator correspondent.
In a letter to Antony Blinken, Bishop Irinej said that violence against Serbs is ethnically motivated, with SOC clergy and monks also being persecuted.
The Bishop, whose see is in New York, in a letter to Blinken sent the day before “in connection with the increasing attacks on the clergy, monks and shrines of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija,” drew attention to “the constant violations of the fundamental human rights of Serbs in southern Serbian provinces."
“Reports of ongoing religious and ethnic persecution of Serbs by Kosovo Albanians are of particular concern to American Serbs, who expect US authorities to condemn them forcefully.
Bishop Irinej expressed particular concern about the latest attacks and slander against the brotherhood of the Visoki Decani monastery and its archimandrite Sava Janjic. In this regard, the bishop attached an official statement by Teodosius, Bishop of Rasch and Prizren, about the threat to the Serbian spiritual and cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija,” reports the SOC Information Service.
An American bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church called on Blinken to stop violence against Serbs in Kosovo.