The people killed at Jasenovac were innocent and each innocent victim is indeed a martyr and transcends ethnicity even though their ethnic background is well known, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, said in Jasenovac on Monday.

Patriarch Porfirije made the statement while conducting Mass at the Monastery of St. John the Baptist at Jasenovac, some 90 kilometres southeast of Zagreb, at an event honouring the martyrdom of people killed at a WWII concentration camp that operated there during the 1941-1945 Nazi-allied Ustasha regime.

Porfirije said that members of the Serbian Orthodox Church had never gathered at Jasenovac to compare those victims against other victims but to remember them and pray that something like that never happens to anyone again.

Those who do evil renounce their ethnicity, he said, noting that this goes for any ethnic group.

On enthronement of head of Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitan of Montenegro

The Church is not a political organisation and has no political goals, he said, among other things.

The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) is autocephalous, it has its canonical territory and is recognised by others. Our jurisdiction does not depend on state and political borders and the Church cannot change its borders or its ecclesiastical jurisdiction based on external pressure, he said.

“We do not mind if any group organises as a prayer community… on the condition it does not threaten others. It can try to steal our spiritual identity. We know that that is not possible and we do not want to defend ourselves against that. I leave, of course, the possibility for everyone to ask themselves if some of the groups organised as prayer communities are really prayer communities,” he said.

By trying to depict (the recent developments in Montenegro) as a fight for the Church, and by using the straw man argument, some in Montenegro wanted to forcibly prevent a purely religious act. By shooting and throwing stones, they wanted to prevent the constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of religion, Porfirije said in reference to riots that erupted in Montenegro on 5 September during the inauguration of the SPC Metropolitan of Montenegro, Joanikije.

Montenegro left its union with Serbia in 2006, but its Orthodox Church still has no status of an autocephalous church, as the SPC opposes that.

The protesters interpreted the SPC’s insistence on holding the ceremony in the Montenegrin historical capital of Cetinje as an act of provocation and humiliation of Montenegrins, asking that it be moved to some other Serbian Orthodox shrine in Montenegro. Thirty police officers and protesters were injured in the clashes and police used tear gas and stun guns in the 5 September riots.

Straw man argument

Porfirije went on to say that the biggest fallacy was the argument according to which the Serbian Orthodox Church was the initiator of all evil and all conflict.

If you name someone an absolute evil, you give everyone the right to eliminate that evil however and whenever they want, he said.

He noted that he was not surprised that the fallacy of argument had spilled from Montenegro to Croatia and that some in Croatia had started calling the SPC the source of all evil, expressing regret that some people who knew him well thought so, too.

Porfirije noted that his words and deeds could be analysed for any inconsistency. Whoever analyses those words will see that there was never bad intent involved, he said.

“I have always and everywhere spoken only affirmatively of Croatia, even though sometimes there were reasons not to do so. I ignored those reasons every time… We respect every country and ethnic group, whether they be Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosniaks, Albanians, Croats. We absolutely respect everyone and respect their right to be what they are without fear or the need to hide it,” he said.

My love of Croatia is public

“Regardless of how much someone may be bothered by it, I love all the people of Croatia, regardless of which ethnicity they belong to… I do not expect absolutely anything in return,” Porfirije said.

“I know that the Croatian state, together with its government and a huge majority of people, has the democratic capacity to let everyone live in individual and ethnic freedom, to feel and state what they truly are, regardless of which God they pray to,” he said.

Attending the Jasenovac event were also the leader of the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS), Milorad Pupovac, Deputy Prime Minister Boris Milosevic, and Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidency member Milorad Dodik.