The ECHR sided with the persecutors of the Serbian Church
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg did not satisfy the claim of the community of the Serbian Orthodox Church against the Montenegrin state in 2005 for the return of lands taken away by the communists.
“The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has ruled in favor of Montenegro in the case of Church of St. George v. State, rejecting as unfounded a complaint by the Metropolis of Montenegro-Littoral (SOC) of an alleged violation ... in connection with their claim for restitution of confiscated property .... “- Balkan media quote the representative of Montenegro to the ECHR Valentina Pavlicic.
Pavlicic, citing the fact that the ECHR had previously made similar decisions in similar cases of the Budimljan-Niksic diocese operating in Montenegro, explained that this time the Church’s claims were rejected as “unfounded,” and the claim itself was called “unacceptable.”
The essence of the claim of the community of the Church of St. George in Podgorica was that after the communists came to power in Yugoslavia, its land was taken away from the ancient church, which was transferred to the balance of the state, without legal grounds or compensation.
In 1992, the church community filed a lawsuit against the municipality of Podgorica and the Montenegrin Shooting Federation, located on church territories, in order to establish property rights.
The proceedings dragged on for almost a decade and were concluded by a decision of the Supreme Court of Montenegro in 2007, which rejected the claim “as unfounded.” After which a claim was filed with the ECHR.
The news that the Church of St. George lost to the Montenegrin state aroused unprecedented enthusiasm among Montenegrin nationalists and supporters of the schismatic “Montenegrin Orthodox Church”, who, in comments on the news about the ECHR decision in various local publications, expressed confidence that this is only the beginning, and then the Montenegrin state will take away the temple itself, as well as the Montenegrin Orthodox shrine - the Ostrog monastery, which can actually happen thanks to the norms of the new “Law on Freedom of Religion”.
“We have not received the decision of the Strasbourg European Court in the case of the Church of St. George and Others, so we cannot comment on it,” the legal department of the Montenegrin-Litovian Diocese of the SOC responded to the uproar in the Montenegrin media. – But it is already obvious that this news was delivered to the media from Podgorica, and not from Strasbourg, by representatives of Montenegro in the European Court... The issue of restitution of property that was unjustly and illegally seized from the Church and religious communities after the Second World War cannot be closed even by the decisions of the Strasbourg court... We are not giving up shrines!”
Mass protests have been taking place in Montenegro since December after the country’s parliament passed a law that threatens the confiscation of 650 Orthodox shrines of the Serbian Church in favor of “autocephalous” schismatics controlled by the ruling regime - in fact, we are talking about a repetition of the scenario implemented in Ukraine.
Montenegro separated from Serbia in 2006 under the pretext of “faster integration into the EU”, but has still not received EU membership. In 2017, against the will of the population, Montenegro was included in NATO by the pro-Western ruling elite without a referendum. Now about 30% of the population of this former part of Yugoslavia call themselves ethnic Serbs.
English version :: Read in English The ECHR sided with the persecutors of the Serbian Church.