Free Republic

Belgrade - There has been very little of turn thy cheek or love thy neighbour in the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) over the turbulent past year, but instead, plenty of fighting, backstabbing and hostility. In Belgrade, the capricious hardline Kosovo Bishop Artemije openly went against the Holy Synod, the church government, when it tried to restrain his heavy-handed tactics which led to fistfights among monks in the holy Visoki Decani monastery. To the west, two years after the tiny republic Montenegro claimed independence from Serbia, its clergy also wants to break away from Belgrade's rule. There, in the northern town...

LONDON (Reuters) - "Ethnic cleansing" could happen again in Kosovo unless negotiations on the province's future lead to strong legal safeguards for minority communities, a minority rights group warned on Monday. Legally part of Serbia, the majority Albanian province has been run by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombs drove out Serb forces accused of ethnic cleansing in a two-year war with separatist guerrillas. Ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of the population, are pushing for independence from Serbia, a goal Serbia rejects. London-based Minority Rights Group International said in a report that after seven years of...