Conversation with former deacon of the Serbian Orthodox Church Bojan Jovanovic

Serbia is shamelessly standing close to Russia at this time of the brutal Russian aggression against Ukraine and as I said in one of my previous blogs such a support would, in their eyes, feed well into Serbia’s own denials of its brutal aggression in 1990’s against Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. On the one hand Serbia holds its arm extended to the EU for membership and with the other hand it reaches out to Russia, which reeks of opposition to EU and NATO! Well, Serbian government and the Serbian Orthodox Church have always been like peas in a pod, working in unison on matters of politics and political operations so I decided to look for credible texts and opinions regarding this and found this interview with Bojan Jovanovic.  I trust you will learn much from this interview.

Interviewer: Davor Dijanović

Interview in the Croatian language first published on March 11, 2022, on the Croatian Cultural Council portal

Translation of the interview into English: Ina Vukic

“It seems that the citizens of Serbia, no matter how intimately they want to become part of the European Union, every day they are one step further away from that desire and, that idea. The biggest obstacle are the choices they constantly make of people in whose hands they place their destiny.  The choices are about the elite that despises human dignity, and that contempt seems to be a patriotic obligation” – says the former deacon of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Bojan Jovanovic, with whom we spoke briefly.   

What class or layer of Serbian society governs Serbia?

Serbia is run by disguised UDBA agencies (TN: Former Communist Yugoslavia State Security Services), guided solely by their own interests. They have introduced a kind of soft dictatorship with which they affirm content that sounds nice to the ears, but in this way they lead citizens to the acceptance of seemingly simple solutions, when, in fact, it is about accepting sheer despotism. With this despotism, individuals create a compromise to their own detriment only to later wonder why things are the way they are for them.

The (TN: self-proclaimed) “heavenly people” seem to be in a kind of collective paranoia, and everything described leads that people into a vicious circle from which it is difficult to get out. In it, it is increasingly more difficult to present arguments of formed opinions, and it is especially difficult to fight against something that you consider already defeated. There is no way forward in Serbia until we realise that we are waging the wrong war. The war we should be waging should be a war of liberation from various people who are opportunely patriotic, but who are well trained in waging a profiteering battle against their own people.

What is the role of the Serbian Orthodox Church in such a gloomy state of Serbian society that you describe?

If you look at the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which lives a legacy of a kind of peasant piety, you will realise that this is the biggest opposition to the Serbian Orthodox Church’s positive changes. The clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church largely live a life that does not suit them, and therefore the key question is: is the Serbian Orthodox Church at all what it should be. That is, is it the church that its pious believers want. The Serbian Orthodox Church ignores the fact that, like all of us, it has its ups and downs and that all members of its clergy know how to make mistakes. It would be Christian to admit it and repent. God is merciful. But it is not Christian to continue living in sin. Unfortunately, many members of the SOC hierarchy do what is diabolical, disgusting and carries with it the stench of abuse of power and status. The assessment mark for such (in) humanity and “Christianity” is “sit down, fail!”

With its behaviour, the Serbian Orthodox Church allows people beyond God’s and human laws to be role models for children and participates in creating chaos by combining psychosis and false hopes for a better life. The Serbian Orthodox Church is flying on the wings of the world to which it should have said “goodbye” a long time ago. It, as such, cannot be a messenger in the fields of the Lord.

Does the Serbian Orthodox Church have a role in the so-called Serbian world project?

The group of “adventurers” has been ravaging Serbia for decades and does not understand the time in which it lives. They did not even remotely dream that they would land in the Belgrade pashadom and that they would fall from their hard stance to begging for crumbs. From all that they could show, they only demonstrated that their fear is eternal. Because of this petty fear, fear for their own positions, they had to put the sword back in its sheath, that is, stop sending other people’s children to their deaths, and now they are silent like bugs. Despite this, they sometimes scream, especially when kneeling with their bare knees on corn. The world knows that the Serbian government is a dog that would like to bite even when you feed it.

Through several decades of compromising the clergy linked to pedophilia scandals and other criminal activities, the Serbian Orthodox Church has fallen into the hands of political adventurers who can return the church to the margins of society with the help of a pen. In addition to becoming the main beacon of the political project of the so-called Serbian world, the Serbian Orthodox Church, with its destructive activities, is causing problems for the entire region by abusing God’s mission. Its connections with criminal groups should also be examined in detail, and more and more people are writing and talking about it.

Now the Serbian Orthodox Church is a destructive element, a kind of paramilitary political institution whose main goal is to deny the statehood, ethnic and cultural heritage of other peoples, as well as to deny and humiliate every feature of others.

I don’t think there is a place in the world where one religious community does not respect the other and rejects the worldly government in the country in which it operates. This was first of all felt by Montenegro, partly by Bosnia and Herzegovina, and almost by Croatia. Fortunately, the Serbian Orthodox Church is recognised as the infrastructure of the criminal Greater Serbia project of the Serbian world, and very soon its work will find itself under an attack by the public and relevant institutions in those countries.

Porphyry in Zagreb, Porphyry in Belgrade. The same person or?

Serbia is constantly going downhill, there is no stabilisation. With the “Porphyry” project, the Serbian Orthodox Church is even further from spiritual catharsis and renewal because, like some disaster, it brought in a huge amount of sediment in a very short time.

Porphyry’s message to both Zagreb and Belgrade is that we can agree on everything in Christian love, but only if it suits him and his family. The choosing of Porphyry had as its goal the rehabilitation of the defeated movements and the denying their crimes. Porphyry is not a dove of peace. He is a mini project of Aleksandar Vucic. A black stain in the black history of the SOC. The only fortune for both Serbia and the entire region is that he will soon be the former patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Political and other winds that are now blowing in the direction of Serbia from the West promise rapid changes, especially in the Serbian Orthodox Church.

What is the attitude of the Serbian Orthodox Church towards the Russian Orthodox Church and its activities?

The Russians and the Russian Orthodox Church in fact despise the traitors of the betrayed state and treat Serbia, the Serbian government, and the Serbian Orthodox Church accordingly. They use our shame to destabilise the Balkans and achieve their goals.

On the other hand, the Serbian Orthodox Church is trying to be better in its profession, and its profession is subservience to the corruption of the Serbian government. This subservience is an attempt to justify all the shame and socially immature situations. Fraternal hand licking, especially the Russian one, is an attempt to survive for as long as possible and so on until a new opportune moment and a new legal and political framework. In a word, we give you submissiveness and cowardice, you give us the “wisdom” with which you can always mobilise us for some new hell.

What is the Serbian Orthodox Church attitude towards the Russian aggression against Ukraine?

Instead of seeking justice for the victims, all of whom are victims of the war started by Russia, the Serbian Orthodox Church, with its hypocritical silence and other actions, has stood by its powerful protector from whom it evidently receives its glaze. A large part of the clergy of the Serbian Orthodox Church is driven by a desire for power, a desire for domination over man. This borders on psychological disorder.

A few days ago, Porphyry stated that the Serbian Orthodox Church is collecting aid for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and in fact that aid will end up in the hands of the Russian Metropolitan in Kyiv. The Serbian Orthodox Church does not recognise the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which became the Autocephalous Tomos of the Ecumenical Patriarch, it only recognises the part that is under the Russian paw.

In conclusion, I can say that the Serbian Orthodox Church is an organisation that works against the interests of its people and state. It is terrible that this sick ideology is being legalised within state bodies. Numerous documents testify to the grave manipulations and atrocities of part of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In a civilised society, such atrocities would be promptly sanctioned. Considering that this will not happen in Serbia for political and other reasons, the Serbian Orthodox Church will have to go through a kind of pedagogical awareness due to the pressure of the surrounding world. The world knows what the Serbian government is.