An Easter liturgy for the faithful celebrating it according to the Julian calendar was held at the Vukovar Orthodox Cathedral of St. Nicholas on Sunday, officiated by Osjecko Polje and Baranja Eparchy Bishop Heruvim, who wished for the risen Christ to grant peace, love, and unity to all.

The Easter epistle of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, was read, in which he  expresses “opposition to attempts at historical revisionism seeking to” have “the Serb people, a victim of multiple genocides and ethnic cleansing, be declared a perpetrator of genocide.”

“We do not diminish the scale of the crimes in Srebrenica, but, as Orthodox Serbs, we also do not ignore the crimes against the Serb people in the vicinity of Srebrenica. Unfortunately, those proposing resolutions do not pay attention to those crimes in Serb villages where entire families were wiped out and which occurred continuously from 1992 to 1995,” Porfirije’s epistle says.

He adds that “the world has forgotten the genocide against the Serb people in the 20th century as well as in the centuries that preceded it.”

The liturgy was attended by the Serbian prime minister’s envoy, the minister without a portfolio in charge of the diaspora, Djordje Milicevic, Vojvodina Assembly vice president Nemanja Zavisic, Serbia’s Consul General in Vukovar, Vladimir Marijanovic, and Independent Democratic Serb Party MP Dragana Jeckov.