Russian Bishop says “montenegrin” church illegitimate

Russia’s Orthodox Bishop Ilarion says that Montenegro is “multi-confessional” state in which the majority is of the Orthodox Christian faith and that the only legitimate Orthodox Christian church there is the Serbian Orthodox Church.
“In Montenegro there is a canonical church to which belongs the majority of the Orthodox people and a small group od self declared that seek to portray themselves that they are an orthodox church. With respect of canonical right, there cannot be two orthodox churches in one territory,” said Russia’s Bishop Ilarion.
The authorities in Montenegro today are attempting to remove the Serbian Bishop Amfilohije from his legitimate position so that they can replace the orthodox church with a self-proclaimed schismatic claming he belongs to a “nonexistent” so-called “montenegrin” orthodox church thus claiming that, as communists argued, the so-called “montenegrin” nation allegedly exists.
In a recent Montenegro state “census”, thousands of Serbs were nixed by the authorities claiming that Serbs there either declared themselves as not Serbs or that Serbs declared themselves that they do not speak Serbian even though the “montenegrin” language is the crown of Serbian literacy booked by Montenegro King Njegosh.
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