Liberal writer intimidates Montenegrins about turning the country into Orthodox Iran
According to the Montenegrin and Bosnian writer and publicist of Greek origin Andrei Nikolaidis, after the victory of the coalition opposing dictator Milo Djukanovic in the elections, a strict clerical regime will be established in the country.
Nikoladis wrote about this in an opinion piece for the Balkan editorial office of the Al Jazeera television channel, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“Forget about Iran: when [Metropolitan of Montenegro and Littoral SOC] Amphilohije finishes what he started, the Vatican will become a secular state compared to Montenegro,” said Nicolaides. “And don’t forget the comparison I made of Montenegro in 2019 with Iran in 1979 when "Amfilohije's ram to demolish the gates of Djukanovic's government called "lithium" rolled through the streets of Montenegrin cities."
This is how Nikolaidis freely interpreted the indignation of local Serbs and Orthodox Montenegrins with the adoption by the Djukanovic regime of the scandalous “Law on Freedom of Religion,” which threatened to take away churches, monasteries and other real estate from the canonical SOC in favor of the state.
The Montenegrin regime needed such a step to create Montenegrin autocephaly on the Ukrainian model, in order to alienate Montenegro from Serbia even longer. Outrage against the discriminatory law resulted in mass protests (prayer services and religious processions) organized by the Montenegrin and Littoral Metropolis of the SOC and its head, Metropolitan Amphilochem. In the wake of this protest, a political protest coalition took shape, which managed to defeat the Democratic Party of Socialists, which had been ruling for three decades, in the recent parliamentary elections.
“Zdravko Krivokapic’s political opponents call him “Rukolub”,” Nikolaidis went through the text about the leader of the winning coalition and potential prime minister (nominated for the post by the parliamentary majority, but not yet approved by his opponent - President Milo Djukanovic - ed.) Zdravko Krivokapic. “That's because during the election campaign he kissed the hand of every priest he met, and he met many of them because he held most of his campaign rallies in churches.
Photographs of the future prime minister of that time are dominated by two motifs: a) Krivokapić, leaning over and kissing the hand of the priest, and b) Krivokapić, smiling, surrounded by village owners, drinking brandy from a bottle. What many ridiculed out of misunderstanding and ignorance was part of a perfectly planned and executed election campaign, which, in case anyone has forgotten, was held in Montenegro, not in Lower Manhattan. These photographs clearly read: the future prime minister will be no stranger to either the people or the church. Will he, having come to power, be alien to cancer? I don't think so. For, as the great Serbian writer Svetislav Basara said, “alcohol should not suffer because of work.”
According to the publicist, during the election campaign, Orthodox priests visited believers and threatened them that if they voted for the party of Milo Djukanovic, they would bring upon themselves and their families the curse of Saints Basil of Ostrog and Peter of Cetinje. Where the author got this crazy information from, he did not specify. But in the end, he called Metropolitan Amfilohije “the true winner of the Montenegrin elections.”
“Now that the work of theocratization is completed, I believe it does not matter at all whether Krivokapić will be Ahmadinejad Amfilohije, or Amfilohije with his miter and beard will be officially proclaimed head of state: Montenegro will be Iran or the Vatican,” concludes Nicolaides.
It is known about Nikolaidis that he was born in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sarajevo, into a Montenegrin-Greek family, which fled to Montenegro with the outbreak of the war in the 90s. He became famous in the field of writing, and his novels and stories often contained liberal-pro-Western, Serbophobic and anti-religious motives.
He gained scandalous fame thanks to a legal battle with the famous Serbian director of Bosniak origin Emir Kusturica, whom in one of his lampoons he called “a propagandist of Slobodan Milosevic” (the article was called “The Executioner’s Apprentice”), after which Kusturica sued him for libel. As a result, Nikolaidis lost to the director in three instances, but patriotic Bosniak writers who collected enough money for this helped to pay his compensation.
He was an advisor to the Speaker of the Montenegrin Parliament.
English version :: Read in English: Liberal writer threatens Montenegrins with the idea of turning the country into Orthodox Iran