War in the Minds: Why Reconciliation in the Post-Yugoslav Space Remains Elusive. Part 3

The late 20^th century was marked by one of the most violent conflicts. The Kosovo conflict broke out in the autonomous province of Kosovo in February 1998 and officially ended in June 1999. With it, the decade-long period of the Yugoslav Wars came to an end.

We will not go into details of this conflict or explore the factor of economic and political interests and humanitarian interventions — topics that have already been covered extensively. All these factors are the usual components of any armed conflict, which itself is often merely a consequence of a long-term artificially created crisis in a region. In this investigation, we will pay attention to the causes of the crisis, in this case — to the causes of long-term interethnic and interreligious hatred that ultimately led to ruthlessness and brutality in this war, and, even after years and decades, hindered reconciliation between the warring parties.

This article is the third part of a study by independent journalists of the actfiles portal, examining the causes and prerequisites for the outbreak of the Yugoslav Wars. The first part titled “Künneth’s Legacy in the Bosnian War”  and the second part “Anticult Trail in the Yugoslav Wars. Symphony of Church and State” focused on the ideological and informational component of the decade-long period of wars in the Balkans, as well as the role of propaganda and indoctrination. The articles also examined the history of the emergence in Yugoslav countries in the 1980s and 90s of such a phenomenon as missionary and apologetic activities of “fighters against sects and cults,” as well as their connection with the radical part of the Serbian Orthodox Church — which was the source of Serbian nationalism — and with individuals such as Johannes Aagaard and Alexander Dvorkin, through the Belgrade Dialogue Center.

This article is aimed at studying the postwar period and finding an answer to the question: Why, so many years after the fighting stopped, there is still no reconciliation? Along with that, the Kosovo war will be partially addressed. In light of the information presented in the previous publications, we believe it is both incomplete and misleading to view the crisis that led to the Kosovo War separately from the entire ten-year period of wars. Similarly to the earlier conflicts, nationalism played a crucial role in the Kosovo war. An illustrative example of its premeditated artificial stimulation among people and manipulation of historical facts is an event that took place 9 years before the start of the war.  

1989: Gazimestan Speech

One of the core public figures in the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s was Slobodan Milošević, a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who served as president of Serbia and later of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) during that period. The speech he delivered on June 28, 1989, at the Gazimestan monument is considered to be a turning point and a trigger in the Kosovo conflict. This event entails a number of significant semantic elements and hidden symbolism. Interestingly, while the Serbian president’s speech was perceived from the outside as promotion of the imperialist idea of “Greater Serbia,” all the accompanying symbolism wasn’t political, but rather religious and historical.

It’s important to clarify that back then, the source of religious, cultural, and historical legends and interpretations with an emphasis on nationalism was precisely the clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC). At that time, pseudo-scholarly Orthodox works were republished, purposefully containing numerous historical inaccuracies and distortions, designed to provoke emotional escalation among the nationalist masses. Those writings were later used by the SOC as historical evidence to justify the Yugoslav Wars which were interpreted as “liberating,” “blessed,” and “defensive.” Let us note some elements of symbolism directly related to Slobodan Milošević’s speech.

Sarcophagus of Prince Lazar

First, it’s important to note the ideological preparation behind the event, or rather the preparation of the Serbian people’s consciousness for it and creation of conditions for the deliberate, threatening speech by the public leader to be accepted by the masses’ consciousness. A few months before Milošević’s speech, the SOC clergy began transporting the sarcophagus of Prince Lazar across all Serbian-populated areas.

Prince Lazar was one of the rulers of Serbia in the 14^th century. He was canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church and is remembered for the fact that, according to a legend, before the battle where he died, he allegedly cursed every Serb and all their descendants who refused to defend Serbia: “Whoever is a Serb and of Serb birth, and of Serb blood and heritage, and comes not to the Battle of Kosovo… let him be cursed from all ages to all ages!” ¹. That historic battle of Prince Lazar took place on the Kosovo field.

Interestingly enough, a number of the SOC representatives, including public apologists who are among “fighters against sects and cults,” have repeatedly mentioned this religious and historical figure, Prince Lazar, in their propaganda speeches, appeals, and sermons, calling for loyalty to him and basically making him a symbol of these wars. Symbolism has always been used by ideologists of war who hide behind anticult activities and have been an integral part of the church’s radical faction — both in the past,  in particular, during the rise of the NSDAP before World War II, and later, during the Yugoslav Wars and in other subsequent examples.

The return of Serbian society to the Kosovo historical religious myth marked the beginning of the end — the end of peaceful life for the population of Kosovo and other Yugoslav regions. The ambitions of ethnic revenge and domination proclaimed in the aforesaid speech resulted not just in the Kosovo war 9 years later, but much earlier it provoked wars in Slovenia (1991), Croatia (1991–1995), and Bosnia (1992–1995).

The SOC’s preparatory activities for Milošević’s speech and the choice of the venue not just anywhere, but specifically on the Kosovo field, can be explained by both historical and territorial factors. Firstly, Kosovo was the seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Secondly, Kosovo was the site where the Turks (professing Islam) defeated Orthodox Christian Serbs in 1389, and it is also associated with the Orthodox Serbs’ victory over Turks in 1912. It was a sacred territory for the SOC. Could the architects of Orthodox nationalism in its extreme manifestation accept the fact that, in the 1980s, on this territory sacred to SOC, the overwhelming majority — more than 80% of the population — constituted Albanian Muslims, while Orthodox Serbs made up only about 10% of Kosovo’s population, according to various sources?

It should be noted that not all the SOC clergy actively played an ideological role in preparing for the future war — only its radical faction, directly associated with such a phenomenon as anticultism. This was explored in detail in the second part of our investigation, “Anticult Trail in the Yugoslav Wars. Symphony of Church and State.” It is also essential to clarify that when we talk about the radical faction of the clergy, we are by no means referring to the entire church or to religion as a system of values and beliefs, but we rather mean individuals who deliberately infiltrated it to use it as a cover for their destructive activities.

Interaction of Yugoslav Political Leaders with “Fighters Against Sects” and the Radical Wing of the SOC

The fact that anticultists, or the so-called “fighters against sects and cults” interacted with political leaders and the military leadership is confirmed by statements of Slobodan Milošević himself. Years after the Kosovo War, at a court hearing on October 4, 2002, Milošević, in an attempt to justify accusations of atrocities committed by the Serbian side, relied on information prepared by Colonel Bratislav Petrović, a neuropsychiatrist and a key fighter against “sects” and “cults” ², who for 10 years since the early 1990s headed the Institute of Mental Health and Military Psychology at the Military Medical Academy (MMA), and on his report, which Petrović had presented as early as 1992. It is noteworthy that information exactly matching this report was also broadcast by other Serbian political and religious leaders, in particular Radovan Karadžić and Patriarch Pavle.

Bratislav Petrović’s activities have been discussed in detail in the first part, so here we will briefly recap some facts. Colonel, neuropsychiatrist Bratislav Petrović headed the Belgrade Dialogue Center, which operated under the SOC, and his subordinate neuropsychiatrists from the MMA had been in close cooperation with SOC clergy for many years as part of their joint apologetic anticult activities in combating “sects” and “cults.” The Belgrade Dialogue was also closely connected with Johannes Aagaard, president of the main Dialog Center International (DCI), and Alexander Dvorkin, vice president of the DCI. Both served on the editorial board of the “Belgrade Dialogue” magazine, published at the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Belgrade, and collaborated with Serbian fighters against “sects” and “cults,” including directly with Bratislav Petrović.

Throughout the entire ten-year period of the Yugoslav Wars, Orthodox clergy repeatedly met with leaders of Serbian paramilitary formations, offering advice and calling for the “protection” of Croatian Serbs, then Bosnian Serbs, and later Kosovo Serbs. During the Kosovo war, Orthodox missionary press also played a significant role in spreading war propaganda and nationalist ideology, especially the outlets controlled by fighters against “sects” and “cults.” For example, the Orthodox magazine Svetigora. In 1999, still during the active phase of the Kosovo war and up to its very end, Svetigora published various articles and interviews promoting ideological narratives of the “defensive,” “liberation,” and “blessed” war. This is mentioned in the research article “Outline of a Serbian Orthodox Doctrine of Righteous War” ^3,4 . The editorial board of this magazine included Serbian anticultists, among them Vladimir Dimitrijević, discussed in the second part of our investigation. The Svetigora magazine was under the full control of Metropolitan Amfilohije Radović, a “war hawk” also known as the “metropolitan of prayer and curses,” directly connected with Serbian fighters against “sects” and “cults.” He was also examined in detail in the previous article.

Escalation of the Kosovo War. Role of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)

The above-mentioned speech by Slobodan Milošević contributed to the revocation of Kosovo’s autonomy, the stripping of Kosovo Albanians’ right to self-governance, and the subsequent brutal years-long suppression of their political and civil rights. ⁵ In the 1990s, dismissals of Albanians from state positions increased, Albanian institutions were shut down, forced evictions of Albanians took place through deliberate economic and social marginalization, and Serbs were resettled to Kosovo in order to change the demographic balance there ⁶ Overall, mass arrests, interrogations, beatings, and torture by Serbian police began, along with mass killings and ethnic cleansing. Pressure from Serbian authorities, mass media, and the military included economic discrimination, political disenfranchisement, and police terror ⁷.

It is important to note that the international community had already been paying attention to the prewar situation in Kosovo, accusing FRY authorities of human rights violations and torture of arrested Albanians. A similar statement came from the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) ⁸ that mentioned torture, killings, and ethnic cleansing. However, no adequate follow-up response was made, which contributed to the growth of retaliatory radical sentiment among the population of Kosovo, which was seeking ways to resist.

Having lost faith in nonviolent resistance and hope for support from the international community, Kosovo Albanians began joining the Kosovo Liberation Army, which at that time was considered a terrorist organization by the Yugoslav government and a number of other countries. However, for many Kosovo Albanians, the KLA became a liberation movement, although its actions drew sharp criticism from the international community because of civilian casualties.

On one hand, these actions by Albanians in support of the KLA were a response to years of discrimination and oppression of the civilian population by the same police and other Serbian officials. On the other hand, the KLA’s actions — especially from 1997–1998 onward — became the official reason for the Yugoslav government to launch large-scale military operations in 1998, nominally against the KLA but in practice targeting the civilian population. Mass arrests of ordinary citizens were carried out, followed by brutal torture, and entire villages were burned.

Victims and Consequences of the Kosovo War From the Actions of Both Sides

During the Kosovo war, Serbian forces killed between 7,000 and 9,000 Albanians ⁹, and nearly 1 million people became refugees. In turn, according to Human Rights Watch ^10,11 , KLA war crimes included the killing of civilians and the operation of prison camps. Serbian Orthodox churches and monasteries were also destroyed with the involvement of the KLA; however, it is accurate to clarify that this was often the result — more precisely, the response — to the hundreds of mosques and other Islamic historical and cultural buildings ¹², Albanian kullas, and Islamic libraries ¹³ destroyed by Serbs.

Since Islamic cultural heritage was viewed by Yugoslav and Serbian military formations as Albanian heritage, its destruction was systematic in nature and was a deliberate and planned component of the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.

It is also important to note the significant difference between the policies of the opposing sides: unlike the “no prisoners” policy and proven ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbian military against Croats, then Bosnian Muslims, and later Albanian Muslims during the ten-year Yugoslav period of wars, in the case of KLA crimes the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) found no evidence of a systematic policy of deliberate attacks on civilians, convicting only certain individual KLA members. As a result, high-ranking KLA leaders brought before the international tribunal were mostly acquitted ⁵.

In essence, both warring sides were merely the fruit of years of ideological ethnic and religious warfare and imposed hostility. In turn, this war was the consequence of a deep crisis artificially cultivated in Yugoslavia during the 1980s and 1990s. Both sides equally became victims of an imposed ideology of superiority, whose true sources were those very masters of indoctrination and successors to the Nazi cause of Walter Künneth — fighters against “cults” and “sects.”

The End of Armed Conflicts but the Continuation of War. Why There Was No Reconciliation?

When considering the end of the Yugoslav conflicts and the arrival of peacetime, one important point must be noted. Although all major armed conflicts in Yugoslavia officially ended in 1999, what happened afterward in the 2000s — and even what continues to happen today — cannot be called peace. The question arises: Why has reconciliation in this region never taken place? Why has hate speech become the language that many in the Balkans still speak?

It has been more than 25 years since the end of the Kosovo war and 30 years since the end of the war in Bosnia. One might think that new generations have been born who did not live through those wars, and that many who were children at the time no longer remember those events today. Yet despite these and other factors, interethnic and interreligious hatred in this region is not only a systematic phenomenon but often transcends all boundaries of peaceful life. The war has never truly left this region — it lives in the minds of people and even in the minds of the new generation. We see this problem as key, and the answer to the question “Who continues to fuel the smoldering embers of war today?” will help explain how to prevent a new armed clash in the future, how to make sure that these embers do not flare up into a new inferno.

Let us recall the example of Nazi Germany, when after World War II the military and political leadership was condemned. However, the ideologists of war who were members of the Nazi Apologetic Center for combating “sects” and “cults,” headed by Walter Künneth, and the radical wing of the Protestant Church clergy among them, faced no punishment. Moreover, they continued their destructive ideological activity. As a result of their postwar efforts — including the work of the well-known fighter against “sects” Friedrich Wilhelm Haack, a direct successor to Walter Künneth’s Nazi knowledge and methods — in Bavaria in 1988, cries of “Heil Hitler!” were heard once again: “Hang them, shoot them all, Heil Hitler!” “They should be lined up against the wall, in a row. Hang them!” “You should be hanged! Heil Hitler!” ¹⁴. These slogans were chanted by a crowd targeting a religious group that Bavarian fighters against “sects” had first stigmatized as a “sect.”

After World War II, Nazism did not disappear — it was reborn in a new sophisticated form through the activities of Nazi ideologists — the anticultists.  Hence, it’s not surprising that even after the decade of Yugoslav conflicts ended, war in the region also did not disappear, because Serbian “fighters against sects,” who had indoctrinated the civilian population and the military, continued their Nazi activities after the war. This will be clearly demonstrated further.

The Postwar Activities of Serbian Anticultist Bratislav Petrović

In the late 1990s, Bratislav Petrović headed the Belgrade Dialogue Center for combating “sects,” which included MMA staff, SOC clergy, key Russian anticultists, and other fighters against “cults” and “sects.” Later, a successor to the Belgrade Dialogue Center was established — a Serbian anticult organization CAS, which became part of the international anticult federation FECRIS. At the same time, Bratislav Petrović continued publishing articles on combating “sects” as well as pieces aligned with his professional activity on indoctrinating the military.

The activities of Bratislav Petrović and his Serbian anticultist colleagues in the postwar period were described in detail in the 2005 report by the human rights organization European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB), titled “The Repression of Religious Minorities in Serbia: The Role Played by the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS)” ¹⁵.

Here’s an excerpt from the report:

“The attacks against religious minorities in Serbia have unceasingly increased during the last years, mainly due to widespread campaigns portraying them as ‘sects’.”

“Petrović is now applying his psychological techniques of indoctrination to target religious minorities. Yet this is not new. In 1993, while ethnic and religious cleansing was underway in Croatia and Bosnia, Petrović used that same ideology to condemn religious minorities within Serbia, accusing them of being terrorist organizations and conveniently labelling them ‘sects.’

Today, together with Zoran Luković, a police captain from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, Petrović accuses religious minorities of being criminals, terrorists, drug dealers and murderers. Working with sensationalist media in Serbia, they have been organizing round tables and talk shows with the Serbian Orthodox Church in order to denigrate and fuel prejudice against religious minorities in the country.”

Considering the information outlined in the first and second parts of our investigation about the methods of influence used by anticultists during the Yugoslav Wars, in particular indoctrination, you gain a different view of the activities of Bratislav Petrović’s colleagues and students in terms of their work with the public. Here’s another excerpt from the aforesaid report:

“Colonel Petrović claimed at a conference organised by FECRIS in Barcelona in 2002 that from the time he started to fight ‘sects’ in 1993, he has trained medical doctors, psychologists and teachers on this subject. As a matter of fact, numerous conferences have been held against religious minorities in Serbia in the last years, mostly given by army psychiatrists or psychologists from the VMA [MMA], police officers and representatives of the Serbian Orthodox Church.”

Let’s recall that in the prewar period, it was the radical faction of the SOC together with anticultists that actively engaged in promoting Orthodox nationalism, instilling a narrative of interreligious and interethnic hostility, and the ideology of superiority of some people over others. It’s no surprise that after the conflicts ended, the same tandem continued similar activities:

“The cooperation of Colonel Petrović with the Orthodox Church is instrumental in his fight against religious minorities in his attempt to maintain a pure Orthodox Serbia. He therefore conducts his conferences with extreme Orthodox Church leaders, during which prejudice and fear are instilled against new religions.

Back in 2001, for example, the Student Association ‘Sveti Justin Filozof’ (Saint Justin Philosopher), an Orthodox student group, organized a tribune at the University of Philosophy on the subject of ‘Sects – phenomenon of mental manipulations,’ at which Bishop Lazar Milin spoke on the theological aspect, and Colonel Bratislav Petrović spoke on the psychological and neuropsychiatric aspects.”

Let us cite one more excerpt from the report “The Repression of Religious Minorities in Serbia: The role played by the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS)” ¹⁵, which vividly demonstrates the ultimate consequences of implanting Künneth’s Nazi ideology in the minds of the Serbian population:

“Colonel Petrović classified as totalitarian organizations such spiritual movements as the Transcendental Meditation and another Hinduist group called Sanatan, that he claimed to have closed down at a FECRIS conference held last year in Marseille, France.”

“As a result of such terrible accusations made by Petrović, the life and belongings of the leader of the spiritual group Sanatan were endangered. HLC reported that following the incident ‘Dragana Bukumirovi met with a group of citizens of Beli Potok. Around one hundred residents took part in the meeting. They told Ms. Bukumirovi that both she and her family should move out of Beli Potok within ten days, and that they would arrange everything connected with the sale of her house. Ms. Bukumirovi was occasionally heckled by the crowd. Among the comments heard were: “Hey, give us some rope and an axe!” and “We’re the Balkans and that’s how we’ll stay, don’t you try and change us!”,’ (though Mrs Bukumirovi is Serbian).”

Let’s focus on this point and note this reaction of the crowd, which is strikingly similar to the one described above — where in Bavaria, under the influence of Nazi anticult propaganda by fighters against “sects” and “cults,” the crowd chanted similar threats against an undesirable religious group labeled as a “sect”: “You should be hanged! Heil Hitler!”

Yet, let’s go back to the excerpt: “After this ‘meeting’ with the inhabitants of Beli Potok, whose manners were reminiscent of the methods used for expelling the Muslims from Bosnia and Kosovo, Dragana Bukumirovi could not leave the village for another 15 minutes, as residents had surrounded her car and begun to rock it. According to her, the two policemen who were present did not react at all, and Ms. Bukumirovi and her companions only succeeded to leave the village thanks to the fact that a crew from B92 Television was covering the incident.

Several residents of Beli Potok told an HLC investigator that Dragana Bukumirovi was not wanted in their village, saying that ‘she and her sect have got to go.’

Eventually, due to Petrović’s actions, as he himself claimed at the FECRIS conference in Marseille, ‘for the first time in Serbia, an obviously anti-social pseudo-psychological cult was banned. The Minister for Human Rights and Minorities banned Sanatan, Spiritual Science’.”

This example is far from the only one. The anticult Nazi propaganda targeting this and other groups whom anticultists label as “cults” and “sects” has resulted in numerous cases of violence against many religious minorities and NGOs in Serbia, as will be described in detail below.

In addition to his activities within Serbia, Colonel Petrović participated in international conferences organized by FECRIS, in particular in Barcelona in May 2002 and in Marseille in 2004, where he publicly presented his efforts on eradication of religious minorities. He also described the results of his activities, noting that one of those groups had been brutally attacked, but he justified it by claiming the group’s doctrine was “exceptionally dangerous,” which was an outright lie. Yet, for other fighters against “sects” and “cults,” including those who gathered at the FECRIS anticult conference, groundless accusations against undesirables is quite acceptable and common in their activities.

Information about Bratislav Petrović’s speech remains on FECRIS’s official website to this day. ¹⁶

Abstract of Dr. Petrović’s speech ¹⁷:

Activities of the Serbian Anticultist Zoran Luković in the Postwar Time

Let’s return to the report “The Repression of Religious Minorities in Serbia: The role played by the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS)” and consider the activities of Serbian anticultist, police Captain Zoran Luković ¹⁵:

“Captain Zoran Luković wrote a book entitled ‘Religious Sects and Orthodoxy.’ In this book, Luković devoted a chapter to each group he labels as a ‘sect’.”

“The first grouping he addresses is that of ‘Pseudo Christian sects,’ among which he places the Reformists as ‘a source of contemporary sects.’ He lists there the Baptists, the Nazareens, the Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, the Pentecostals, God’s Church, God’s Children, Family of Love, Free Church, Christ Church, New Apostolic Church, Christ Church of Small Baptizing, Christ Church of Evangelist Brothers, the Western Orthodox Church, the Word

of Life, Universal Life.

Then comes the grouping of ‘Occult and magical’ sects, in which Luković places astrology, theosophy, anthroposophy, alchemy, kabala, extra-sensory perception, numerology, spiritualism, superstition, occult phenomena techniques, para-psychic phenomena, prophet phenomena.”

The list of these organizations is extremely interesting due to its semblance of a similar list maintained in Nazi Germany. Among the movements and groups that Walter Künneth’s Nazi apologetic center fought against in the 1930s were anthroposophy, Darwinism, monism, spiritualism, occultism, and others.

Zoran Luković’s book was widely promoted by Bratislav Petrović and the Serbian Orthodox Church, which is also indicated in the 2005 report.

Reviewers of Luković’s book “Religious Sects and Orthodoxy” included neuropsychiatrist Bratislav Petrović, SOC bishop and active fighter against “sects” and “cults” Porfirije Perić, and others. Among professional partners of the book was the anticultist Vladimir Dimitrijević who is described in detail in our previous publication.

Victims of Serbian Anticultists

An illustrative evidence of anticultists’ destructive activities is the cases of their victims. From 2001 to 2005, 300 religious hostility incidents were recorded in Serbia as a result of the activities of anticultists or more specifically, following their creation of an atmosphere of alienation and fear among citizens and incitement to religious hatred and intolerance. These consequences were also due to the publication of the aforesaid book by Zoran Luković and its media coverage. Such incidents are detailed in a number of reports released by reputable human rights defenders and lawyers, in particular, “Freedom of Religion or Belief. Anti-Sect Movements and State Neutrality: A case study: FECRIS” prepared by human rights advocates and lawyers from five countries, as well as in the above-mentioned report “The Repression of Religious Minorities in Serbia: The role played by the European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism (FECRIS).” Let is cite another excerpt from the latter ¹⁵: 

“One of the latest instances of violence is Seventh-day Adventist pastor Josip Tikvicki who was seriously beaten, on 15 April 2005, in front of the Adventist Church in the city of Zrenjanin, 40 miles northeast of Belgrade. As reported by Religious News Online, just before midnight on April 15, Tikvicki and his wife heard glass breaking. He went outside to investigate and confronted a group of three men who were throwing stones at the windows and vandalizing the church. He was then attacked. According to church sources, Tikvicki was kicked, hit, and then fell to the ground, losing consciousness. Church sources say he was found unconscious by the police, and was taken to the city hospital by an ambulance. Tikvicki remained hospitalized, in a very serious state.

Dr. Radiša Antić, President of the Adventist Church for South-East Europe, declared to the media that this, unfortunately, was ‘not an isolated incident.’ ‘I am deeply concerned about what is happening to our churches across the country,’ he said, ‘In the last 10 days our central church in Belgrade was stoned twice, along with the church in the cities of Kragujevac, Negotin, Smederevo, and Backa Palanka. Obviously these are not coincidences, but rather orchestrated attacks by some organizations targeting religious minorities’.”

“…The situation in Serbia is very serious and requires international attention since attacks on religious and spiritual minorities have risen at an alarming rate during the last years, since Petrović and Luković started their media campaigns.

As Forum 18 News Service reported on 9 June 2005:

‘Last year saw an upsurge in attacks on religious minorities, ranging from slander and vilification in the media to physical attacks on places of worship and individuals, with such attacks continuing at a high level into this year.’

‘More than 100 attacks took place on Protestant, Catholic, Jehovah’s Witness, Jewish, Muslim and Romanian Orthodox targets in 2004, with more than 25 such attacks between January and May this year. Religious minorities complain the authorities are failing to take action to punish the perpetrators. Incidents range from an attack on a mosque in Presevo with a hand-held rocket launcher last February to graffiti “Death to Adventists” written on the walls of the Adventist theological college in Belgrade in March. Numerous Catholic graveyards have been desecrated, while the media constantly speak of Protestants, Old Calendarist Orthodox and Mormons as “dangerous sects”’.”

The following excerpts from the report “Freedom of Religion or Belief. Anti-Sect Movements and State Neutrality: A case study: FECRIS” ^{18, 19} are quite revealing and confirm that Nazism has been nurtured in the minds of some Serbs as a result of the activities of anticultists:

“It is important to point out that this text by Bratislav Petrović, together with texts and media statements by Zoran Luković, were used at the site of Stormfront Serbia, which in the civilian society in Serbia is perceived as a space where ultranationalist and fascistic ideas are spread. The official logo of this site reads ‘White pride worldwide.’ Thus, for example, on the said site a topic ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses Are Gathering’ was opened, where texts by Petrović and Luković were posted. In some of the posts commenting on these texts, participants of the forum called on violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses and some of them even described events in which they attacked members of Jehovah’s Witnesses. A Forum member under the nickname ‘Bad Skin’ said: ‘In Serbia every scum is allowed to gather, from sect members to scum which openly work on disintegrating and parcelling Serbia, and when I say this, I mean those little shits from 64 Districts and Shiptars in southern Serbia.’

Another forum member under the nickname ‘Sser’ said: ‘I personally can hardly wait for the next gathering of Satanists, faggots, junkies and other degenerates… We should prepare them a warm welcome then.’

A forum member under the nickname ‘Milan Stojadinovic Jr.’ adds: ‘Do us a favour, storm the next gathering of these sects with a belt of C-4’ and ‘let them rip, don’t let any of those evildoers survive.’

Finally, forum members under nicknames ‘Serbiantribe’ and ‘AC’ on experiences with members of Jehovah’s Witnesses said: ‘All of them should be cut in the root, tomorrow they will try to recruit our children, since they got a warm welcome from me and my neighbours they do not show up any more over here and let it stay like that… Serbia to Serbs, a Serb for a Serb’ and ‘I hit a Jehovah’s Witness with a soda in a carton pack… He did not react at all… The same as the man from Hare Krishna, but I did not hit him with a juice but with a fist. Brainwashed, all of them’.”

Should we remind these “Orthodox Christians” of Jesus Christ’s covenant, “If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also” (Matthew 5:39)? So who in this case was a true Christian and fulfilled God’s commandments, and who was just using Orthodox Christianity as a cover? And what have the followers of Nazism turned Orthodoxy into nowadays? Based on the above examples where there are calls for an explosive belt and destruction of people, the answer to this question is self-revealing: Orthodoxy has been turned into a Nazi terrorist organization.

It is noteworthy that, similar to Serbia and the slogan “Serbia to Serbs,” in Russia where anticultists led by Alexander Dvorkin have also been active over the past 30 years, today we can often hear and encounter a similar slogan: “Russia to Russians.” Wherever the successors of Nazi methods operate, Nazism inevitably revives, and that’s exactly what we see.

Despite all the destructive activities of Serbian anticultists, Serbian courts haven’t considered any cases against police captain Zoran Luković, Colonel Bratislav Petrović, or other fighters against “sects” and “cults.” The only organization that tried to initiate a case by filing a complaint was the Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR). Information about this is described in detail in the report “Freedom of Religion or Belief. Anti-Sect Movements and State Neutrality: A case study: FECRIS”: “In June 2005, the NGO ‘Youth Initiative’ filed criminal charges against Zoran Luković for inciting racial, religious and national hatred, discord and intolerance under article 134 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Serbia.”

The text of YIHR’s statement is cited in the same report:

Let us quote an excerpt from a response by the Serbian Minister of Interior to YIHR:

“Soon after the criminal charges had been brought, the then Minister of Interior of the Republic of Serbia, Dragan Jočić, published a press release voicing the Ministry’s support for Zoran Luković, his activities and actions in public. The press release read as follows: ‘Luković is an expert in sectarianism whose quality of work and objectivity have been verified countless times by both the citizens and domestic and international experts, and he enjoys support of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.’

In this press release, Jočić accused Youth Initiative for Human Rights of spreading ‘narrow-mindedness and insularity’ as well as of filing ‘unfounded criminal charges’.”

“…According to the information obtained in an interview with Youth Initiative’s programme director, Dragan Popović, after waiting for several years for the prosecutor’s office to respond to the criminal charges filed, the answer ultimately was that the criminal charges had to be dropped on account of a lack of evidence required for instituting criminal proceedings against Zoran Luković.”

The same report “Freedom of Religion or Belief. Anti-Sect Movements and State Neutrality: A Case Study: FECRIS” documented incidents of vandalism, threats, and physical attacks motivated by religious hatred and intolerance in various years including 2008 and 2009.

Some 2009 incidents are particularly impressive, so let’s quote them separately:

“A report issued by Youth Initiative entitled ‘Enforcement of Laws in Transition in Serbia 2009’ documented a number of attacks against members and property of small religious communities. In mid-2009, swastikas and graffiti reading ‘death to the sect’ and ‘get out of Serbia’ were painted on a religious object belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses in Sremska Mitrovica. In October, the same building was pelted with eggs. In July, one person took out a gun and loaded a bullet in the chamber while pointing it at two female members of Jehovah’s Witnesses who were distributing invitations to their congress in the Pionir Hall in Belgrade. There is also a mention of frequent graffiti painted on premises of the Baptist Church in Serbia, as well as graffiti made on the premises of the Adventist Church in Kragujevac (‘sects out,’ ‘we will kill you’ and similar). There has been one case of vandalism of a car parked in the yard of the Adventist Church in Belgrade.”

“Zivota Milanovic from Jagodina, a member of Hindu Vaishnava religious community otherwise known as Hare Krishna, was attacked five times between 2001 and 2007 because of his religious beliefs. The assailants beat him with arms and legs, baseball bats, stabbed a knife into his arms, legs, stomach and chest. In June 2006, Zivota had a cross engraved onto his head with a knife. Youth Initiative filed three criminal complaints to the District Attorney’s Office in Jagodina, the first one in March 2006 and the last one in June 2007, contacted the President of Serbia, the Ministries of Justice and Interior and the General Inspectorate, but the attacks persisted.”

All of these examples impress with their cruelty and inhumane treatment of those whom anticultists branded as “cultists” or “sectarians.” That’s a clear consequence of the anticult, or rather Nazi indoctrination. In conclusion, here is another report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, “Dangerous Indifference. Violence against Minorities in Serbia,” which records the results of an extensive investigation into religious and ethnic violence in various regions of Serbia in 2003-2004. ²¹ This report is quite revealing, and we recommend that you read it in its entirety, as well as the other materials cited above.

“Human Rights Watch has carried out extensive research into the allegations of ethnic violence in Vojvodina and other parts of Serbia reported since the end of 2003. The research indicates that there is cause for serious concern. Ethnic Albanians and Roma, as well as religious Muslims and minority non-Orthodox Christians, are the most vulnerable groups in Serbia today. The attacks on those communities in March 2004 and afterward were among the worst incidents of violence in Serbia in recent years.”

“In Serbia’s capital Belgrade, and in the second biggest city, Nis, mobs set mosques on fire. The police in both cities were unable or unwilling to contain the violence. As in Vojvodina, there have been no prosecutions for incitement to ethnic, racial or religious hatred for the arson attacks, and there have been only a handful of criminal prosecutions in connection with the incidents.”

“March 2004: Violence against Albanians and Muslims

The worst violence in the past two years [2003-2004] against minorities in Serbia occurred between March 17 and 20, 2004. It was sparked by the violent rioting by ethnic Albanians throughout Kosovo on March 17 and 18. In Nis and Belgrade, demonstrators set the city mosques on fire. Mobs in Novi Sad, the capital of Vojvodina, damaged the premises of the Islamic center and damaged bakeries and pastry-shops owned by ethnic Albanians and Muslims. Angry crowds in Novi Sad attempted to break into settlements inhabited by Roma and Ashkali (Albanian-speaking Roma) families. In other towns in Vojvodina and elsewhere in Serbia, smaller groups of people damaged bakeries and pastry-shops belonging to ethnic Albanians.”

“Nis, March 17, 2004: Islam Aga Mosque

On the evening of March 17, 2004, a group of two thousand demonstrators gathered in the central square in Nis, the second largest city in Serbia. Around 10 p.m., demonstrators marched toward the nearby Islam Aga mosque and set it on fire, chanting ‘Kill, kill Shiptar!’ When police arrived, the mosque was already burning. Police allowed the crowd to block fire fighters access to the mosque, leaving them unable to extinguish the fire. The fire destroyed most of the mosque and its tower (minaret).

The municipal prosecutor in Nis indicted eleven individuals for participating in a group which inflicted damage on the mosque in the amount of 5 million dinars (equivalent of US $90,000).”

The two examples below from the report “Dangerous Indifference. Violence against Minorities in Serbia” ²¹ are telling not only as manifestations of religious intolerance and hatred, but also as clear evidence of the source of that hatred — the influence of anticult Nazi ideology. In the actions and words of the attackers, one can see the key narrative promoted by fighters against “sects” — their use of the derogatory label “sect” toward those they deem undesirable:

“On the night of May 29 or in the early hours of May 30, 2004, three minors and one eighteen-year old painted graffiti with hate messages on faades of two Slovak houses, two churches belonging to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Nazarenes, and on a van owned by an ethnic Croat. The perpetrators wrote ‘A Sect!’ and ‘German Ustashas!’ and painted Nazi swastikas and stylized ‘U’ letters the latter symbol denoting Ustasha, the Croatian allies of the Nazis in the World War II”

“In one case, an Adventist priest was attacked. On May 3, 2004, after the evening service at the AdventistChurch in Novi Sad, three intoxicated students harassed the priests and worshippers. Around 9 p.m., twenty-year old student Rade Tomanovic arrived by taxi to the neighborhood, purportedly to visit his friend who lives nearby. Tomanovic saw worshippers leaving the service, and asked them whether they were a ‘sect.’ One woman testified in the later misdemeanor proceedings how she tried to explain to Tomanovic that the Adventists were not a sect. As Tomanovic spoke with loud voice, a senior priest who passed by told him to lower his voice. Tomanovic then got angry and grabbed the priest, Ljubisa Stajic, by the throat. According to the priest, Tomanovic insulted him and a group of worshippers, ‘We should chase away you sectarians and burn and break all this!’ Other persons on the site demanded that Tomanovic leave, and somebody in the group pushed him. Tomanovic fell and banged his head against the wall. He stepped out to the yard, only to come back a moment later with two friends-Drazen Knezevic and Rade Karadzic, both twenty-years old. Both men were drunk. All three insulted and threatened the worshippers. The police arrived soon after and arrested the offenders.”

Overall, this entire report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch presents reliable data for 2003–2004 on numerous attacks against ethnic and religious minorities in Serbia, including Hungarians; Roma and Ashkali settlements; shops, bakeries, and other property belonging to Albanians, Gorani, and Turks; as well as churches and buildings of Adventists, and Islamic cultural centers. There were also cases of desecration and destruction of religious shrines and cemeteries, acts of vandalism using graffiti expressing hatred, and physical assaults.

Based on the information reviewed in this and previous articles, a question arises: is reconciliation in this region possible? Since a direct correlation between the activities of anticultists and the manifestation of hatred on religious and ethnic grounds has been proven, the answer to this question will depend on which course the countries and residents of this conflict-stricken region choose. Will they follow the path of democracy and universal human values, or will they remain with the ideology of supremacy imposed on them for many decades by the direct successors of Walter Künneth’s Nazi cause? Unfortunately, an event that occurred a few years ago, at this moment, does not herald the arrival of such a long-awaited peace.

The New Serbian Patriarch as a Fighter Against “Sects” and “Cults”

In 2021, Serbia elected a new Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, bishop Porfirije (secular name Porfirije Perić) — a close colleague of Bratislav Petrović and Zoran Luković in the fight against “sects.” In 2007, Porfirije Perić also represented the Serbian anticult branch together with other Serbian anticultists at an international FECRIS conference, as mentioned in the previous part. He also took part in a seminar on sects in Berlin in 2015 ²².

On the day of bishop Porfirije’s election to the post of the SOC Patriarch, the official website of the Novosibirsk Diocese, headed by Archpriest Alexander Novopashin, a Russian fighter against “sects,” published news about this. ²³

“Today, on February 18, 2021, the Serbian Orthodox Church has acquired a new Patriarch — Metropolitan Porfiry (Perić) of Zagreb and Ljubljana.

We have known His Holiness the Patriarch since the time when he was an Archimandrite and participated in various anti-sectarian conferences in Greece, Germany and other countries. These conferences were held by the Commission of the Synod of the Church of Greece on Combating Sectarianism, by the Dialogue Center International, and by FECRIS.

Then Archimandrite Porfiry became a vicar bishop, then Metropolitan. However, despite his busy schedule, his interest in anti-sectarian topics never waned. He participated in every annual conference of the Pan-Orthodox Anti-Sectarian Network and became the organizer of such a conference in his cathedral city of Ljubljana. Thus, Vladyka Porfiry became the first Orthodox patriarch who is personally well acquainted with anti-sectarian issues and understands the importance of this work. We sincerely congratulate His Holiness on this fateful election and wish him many blessed and fruitful years!”

The above information confirms that at least two countries in the world are currently under the rule and total control of the Nazis. The investigation is ongoing.

Sources:

1. https://www.threads.com/@meet.the.serbs/post/C8xPoPgtHtF 
2. http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/documents/trial/2002-10-04.html 
3. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15/12/1473 
4. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/15/12/1473#B26-religions-15-01473
5. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kosovo-Liberation-Army
6. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1992/yugoslavia
7. https://www.refworld.org/legal/resolution/unchr/1994/en/7920
8. https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/49/204
9. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/10/world/europe/10iht-serbia.2166700.html
10. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo
11. https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/undword.htm
12. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=4F9OCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA72&dq=Kosovo+war+mosques&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Kosovo%20war%20mosques&f=false
13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1262553?read-now=1&seq=1
14. https://taz.de/Hettstadt-betr-quotEin-Dorf-kaempft-gegen-das-Universelle-Lebenquot-taz-vom-1489/!1815658
15. https://freedomofbelief.net/sites/default/files/documents/Report-Serbia-27.07.05.pdf
16. https://www.fecris.org/uncategorized/bratislav-petrovic
17. https://www.fecris.org/uncategorized/abstract-bratislav-petrovic
18. https://www.academia.edu/21732719/Freedom_of_Religion_or_Belief_Anti_Sect_Movements_and_State_Neutrality_A_Case_Study_FECRIS
19. https://web.archive.org/web/20190118134935/https:/hrwf.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Freedom-of-Religion-or-Belief-Anti-Sect-Movements-and-State-Neutrality-A-CASE-STUDY-FECRIS.pdf
20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILP4LBnXilI
21. https://www.hrw.org/report/2005/10/09/dangerous-indifference/violence-against-minorities-serbia
22. https://iriney.ru/raznoe/raznoe/v-berline-zavershilsya-seminar-po-sektam.html
23. https://ansobor.ru/news.php?news_id=9934