The head of the Serb Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, called on Sunday in Vukovar on Orthodox believers to remember and pray for their own victims as well as the victims among their Catholic neighbours as "those who respect other communities' victims are equal to those who sacrifice themselves for others."

“We should look up to such people, while those who commit violence against helpless people, in war or in peace, deserve condemnation and contempt. I therefore call on you to light a candle and pray today for our victims, our Orthodox brothers and sisters, but also for all the innocent Catholic Croats victims,” Patriarch Porfirije said at a ceremony at which he consecrated, in the presence of numerous Serb Orthodox bishops, the Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas in Vukovar.

He called on those attending the event to pray for every innocent victim and for the city of Vukovar as prayer and Christian forgiveness are the only way for all wounds to heal.

The differences between people who live in Vukovar are small and negligible, the things they have in common are far more numerous than those that separate them, with Christian faith being what brings them closer together but what also implies certain obligations, he said.

I light a candle for those killed in Glina, Varivode, Grubori but also Ovcara, Skabrnja, Lovas…

The Serb Orthodox dignitary said that in his heart he lit a candle for people killed in Glina, Varivode, Grubori and other places of suffering of the Serb people.

“I also pray and light a candle for the people killed at Ovcara, Skabrnja, Lovas, Sotin and many other places of suffering.”

We also pray for all people gone missing in the period from 1919 to 1995, in a horrible and unfortunate war in this region, regardless of which ethnic group they may belong to, he told those attending the ceremony.

“There is no other path but the one of prayer and forgiveness. As children of God, we must not let those who hold the levers of power that are of this world, decide the issues concerning our lives, mutual relations and the past, present and future because those levers serve to achieve goals that are, to say the least, different than the goals of the Gospels,” he said.

At the end of the liturgy, Patriarch Porfirije was decorated with the Order of St Despot Stefan Stiljanovic, the patron saint of the Eparchy of Osjecko Polje and Baranja.

Decorations for meritorious service were also conferred, among others, on the leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Milorad Pupovac, and on one of the founders of that party and its former long-time president, Vojislav Stanimirovic.

The Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas in Vukovar was built in 1737. In the night between 18 and 19 September 1991 it was severely damaged in a blast. Its reconstruction lasted from 2009 to 2014 and was entirely financed by the Croatian government.