Trial of Serbian priests in Montenegro postponed
A large number of believers of Montenegrin Niksic came to support Bishop Ioannikis of Budimljan-Niksic and eight other SOC priests, who are being tried by the Montenegrin regime for holding a service in honor of St. Basil of Ostrog on May 12 and allegedly violating quarantine rules.
This was reported by Balkan media, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
Before the start of the trial, trial judge Igor Djurickovic asked Bishop Ioannikiy about his financial situation, since he could be sentenced to a fine.
“It is impolite to ask a monk about his financial situation, since a monk cannot have personal property; he already has everything he needs,” the bishop answered this question.
In turn, one of the defendants, Doctor of Theology, Father Nikola Marojević, demanded that all documents in the case be presented by the court and the prosecution in Cyrillic (the Montenegrin authorities, having announced that they had their own Montenegrin language, different from Serbian, secretly translated it , including official document flow, in Latin).
As a result, the judge postponed the hearing of the case until July 16, due to the fact that one of the defendants, father Slobodan Jokic, is ill and is currently in hospital.
“On that day, there were from 15 to 20 thousand people near the temple, if you follow the logic of the accusation, then you would have to conduct a trial against 20 thousand people, which is absurd,” one of the priests’ lawyers, Savva Kostic, commented on the situation. “I hope that during the trial it will be explained by what criteria Bishop Ioannikiy and these eight priests were chosen [as defendants].
I hope for the impartiality of the court... since, as we see, the State Prosecutor General’s Office is only the executor of the relevant indictment, and that the person who ordered this act is clearly a person from the higher authorities of the prosecutor’s office.”
It should be noted that thousands of believers came to the courthouse, chanting: “We will not give up the shrine!” and “We won’t give a bishop!”
Let us recall that Bishop Ioannikis of Budimlya-Nikšić and eight other priests of this diocese of the SOC are being tried for the fact that on May 12, during quarantine, they served in one of the churches of the city in honor of St. Basil of Ostrog, revered by Orthodox Serbs. At the same time, several thousand believers gathered near the cathedral. The priesthood was subsequently arrested and imprisoned for 72 hours, which sparked street riots in this and other cities of Montenegro. Defendants face a fine or up to one year in prison.
English version :: Read in English The trial of Serbian priests in Montenegro has been postponed.