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Kosovo monastery thriving under NATO guard
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| 02 Dec 2002 02:08
| Fredrik Dahl
Posted on 12/01/2002 8:40:54 PM PST by Destro
02 Dec 2002 02:08
Kosovo monastery thriving under NATO guard
By Fredrik Dahl
DECANI, Yugoslavia, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Under NATO protection in Albanian-dominated Kosovo, the 14th century Serbian Orthodox monastery of Decani is enjoying a revival. Its small community of black-robed monks has doubled since the 1999 war.
While Italian soldiers guard the renowned monastery against any attacks by hostile ethnic Albanians, the mostly young monks lead a life that appears to have changed little since medieval times, devoting their days to prayer and hard work.
But they also embrace aspects of modern life, hooked up to the Internet via satellite and using a monastery Web site to tell the outside world about their church and the plight of minority Serbs in the U.N.-governed Yugoslav province.
"We are constantly connected to the Internet and e-mails are constantly arriving," said Father Sava, who came to Decani a decade ago when only a few elderly monks remained.
On this day, he had just returned from a Serb church blown up by unknown perpetrators, taking photographs with a digital camera for display on the Internet.
"For us it has always been a way of communication like all others," said Father Sava, called the Cyber Monk by some media.
Over the last decade, the Decani community has grown to around 35 monks and novices, the youngest still a teenager.
During a recent visit, they were busy preparing for an annual celebration of the Serbian king and saint who founded the monastery. Bearded monks with long black hair cleaned the church, built of marble and boasting old fresco masterpieces.
"The years of wars were actually very beneficial for the renewal of spiritual life generally in Serbia," the dynamic and youthful Father Sava said, calls on his mobile phone often interrupting the interview.
"We don't have enough space to accommodate all the young people who would like to become monks."
ICONS AND RAKIJA
The monastery lies in a western Kosovo valley beneath wooded mountains, covered in golden autumn colours at this time of the year. Its white and clean Romanesque appearance differs from other churches in Kosovo, usually built in the Byzantine style.
The Decani monks live from making and selling icons, their own red wine and strong Serbian brandy known as rakija. They are also carpenters, carving altar screens, and work the monastery's fields and keep cows and hens.
"Generally we are self-sufficient, we don't depend on regular funding from anyone," Father Sava said.
But he said the monastery would not survive without protection of the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo.
It twice came under mortar attack two years ago and a nearby Orthodox cemetery was recently vandalised again, he said.
The monks also complain that local Albanians shout abuse at them and say they can't go to the town of Decani just down the road to buy food and other necessities. "We can never leave the monastery without an escort," Father Sava said.
Most of the people visiting Decani these days are either peacekeepers or Western officials working in Kosovo.
Kosovo was placed under U.N.-led administration in the summer of 1999 after three months of NATO bombing launched to halt Serb repression of the province's Albanian majority when Slobodan Milosevic ruled Yugoslavia.
After Yugoslav forces withdrew, Serbs were subjected to a wave of revenge attacks by mainly Muslim Kosovo Albanians who suffered many atrocities committed by the police and army.
About 180,000 Serbs fled Kosovo, including those in the town of Decani near the monastery, making it an isolated enclave.
Father Sava said the monastery had condemned violence by both sides during the 1998-99 conflict between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian guerrillas and that it also sheltered some 200 Albanian refugees towards the end of the war.
But many Kosovo Albanians say others in the Orthodox church played an important role in fanning the Serb nationalism that helped Milosevic rise to power in the 1980s.
NO COMPLAINTS
The monks of Decani don't complain of their precarious situation, saying it heightens the religious experience.
"This situation in which we live is helping us to live a much more intense spiritual life than we would live for instance in a situation with complete security, comfort and opulence," Father Sava said.
"It is very hard to think of a heavenly kingdom when you have an earthly kingdom," he said with a laugh.
At 42, Father Arsenios is among the veterans in Decani, one of the first who came in the early 1990s after living as an artist in New York for several years.
He leads a small team painting icons in traditional style -- mixing colour pigment with egg yolk, vinegar and water. The order book is full for at least a year, but he suggested they could never equal the depth of feeling of the ancient masters.
"There is not a big difference in terms of technique," he said. "But they were more spiritual. The times were more pure."
Like the other monks, he wakes at 3 a.m., devoting the morning to prayer, then working in the studio for up to six hours, church music quietly playing on the stereo.
Decani is attracting Serbs from all over, including a newcomer who lived in Sweden. Father Sava, from the Croatian coastal town of Dubrovnik, said they come to find a more worthy life than striving for a career and material things.
A revival at Decani was already apparent when British author Victoria Clark visited the monastery before the war for her book on Eastern Orthodoxy, "Why Angels Fall". She found most of the monks were young, from the middle class and well-educated.
"Decani was no longer the almost abandoned outpost of Serbian Orthodoxy it had been when Father Sava arrived in 1992.
"Only a couple of months before our visit the Belgrade newspapers had splashed the news that one of the capital's best loved young actors had abandoned his hectic lifestyle to become a monk at Decani," she wrote.
Five years on, Father Ilarion is still here.
TOPICS: Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: balkans; campaignfinance; kosovo
1
posted on
12/01/2002 8:40:54 PM PST
by
Destro
To: Balkans
bump
2
posted on
12/01/2002 8:41:14 PM PST
by
Destro
To: *balkans
bump
3
posted on
12/01/2002 8:41:21 PM PST
by
Destro
To: Destro
As the title suggests the monastery is thriving under NATO guard.
Which brings up the question:
was the monastery NOT thriving when it was NOT under NATO guard and NATO was NOT in Kosovo?
The answer is YES it WAS.
NATO brought the threat to the monastery and NATO is now guarding.
NATO = Protection raquet organisation
4
posted on
12/01/2002 9:57:03 PM PST
by
bobi
To: bobi
Key quote: About 180,000 Serbs fled Kosovo, including those in the town of Decani near the monastery, making it an isolated enclave. Who was ethnic cleansing who down there? Not the standard story Maddie ALbright gave.
5
posted on
12/01/2002 10:08:57 PM PST
by
WOSG
To: Destro
To: bobi
NATO = Protection raquet organisation Bingo! I think that's the most perfect single phrase I've heard to summarize NATO's post Cold War existence.
7
posted on
12/02/2002 5:20:54 PM PST
by
bob808
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Post-War Life of Decani Monastery