Eparchy Raszien-Prizren

Eparchies of the Serbian Orthodox Church

The Raszien-Prizren Eparchy ( Serbian Епархија рашко-призренска Eparhija raško-prizrenska ) is a diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church . Your area includes Kosovo and the areas of central Serbia bordering to the north , the old Raszien . The eparchy was created in 1808 by the union of the dioceses of Raška and Prizren. Today the bishopric is the Kosovar city of Prizren . Cathedral is the Church of Our Lady of Ljeviš . From 1991 to 2010, Bishop Artemije headed the eparchy. After his removal by the Synod of the Serbian Church, Bishop Atanasij took over the office. No reliable information can be given about the number of Christians belonging to the eparchy due to the expulsions and forced emigration in recent years.

In the area of the diocese there are a large number of important medieval churches and monasteries of the Serbian Orthodoxy. Their existence provided the Serbian side in the Kosovo conflict with one of their central arguments as to why the province must continue to be an integral part of the Serbian state in the future: the Orthodox Christian identity of the Serbs is largely linked to the sacred landscape in Metochia .

history

In late antiquity, the western Balkan peninsula was under the jurisdiction of the papal vicariate of Thessaloniki. It was not until Emperor Leo III. subordinated these areas to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. 927–971 the Kosovo region belonged to the Bulgarian Patriarchate, which was established by Tsar Simeon . After the conquest of Bulgaria, the independent Bulgarian hierarchy was abolished by the Byzantine emperor Basil II and the new autocephalous archdiocese of Ohrid was formed, to which the churches of the Serbian populated areas were also subordinated.

Raška

Church of the Mileševa Monastery

The eparchy has existed since around the 10th century; it was first mentioned in written sources in 1020 . During this time it was subordinate to the metropolis of Ohrid. In 1219 the eparchy became part of St. Sava founded autocephalous Serbian church. Along with the establishment of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć , Raška received archbishopric status in 1346. The Metropolitans resided near the church of St. Peter and Paul at the gates of Novi Pazar (in the Middle Ages: Trgovište). In the 17th and 18th centuries, several small orphaned eparchies were attached to the Raška. In 1808 Prizren and Kosovo were added. The decrease in the number of eparchies is an expression of the creeping decline of ecclesiastical life in Serbia during the Ottoman rule. Last but not least, the emigration of many Orthodox Serbs to the territory of the Habsburg Monarchy meant a bloodletting for the church in old Serbia, which found it difficult to cope with.

Prizren

The Prizren eparchy is also mentioned for the first time in Byzantine sources at the beginning of the 11th century. A bull of Emperor Basil II names Prizren as one of the eparchies under the Archdiocese of Ohrid. At that time it only comprised part of what is now Kosovo. In 1189 , the area of the eparchy was conquered by Stefan Nemanja and incorporated into medieval Serbia. But it was not until 1214 that the Serbs were finally able to prevail against Bulgaria and Byzantium. This was then reflected in the ecclesiastical organization: In 1219 the Prizren eparchy became part of the autocephalous Serbian church. In 1346, with the elevation of the autocephalous Serbian church to the rank of patriarchy, Prizren was also elevated to a metropolitan area. Until the conquest by the Ottomans in 1455, the diocese of Prizren experienced a long heyday. Numerous churches were built and many monasteries were founded, which developed into centers of medieval written culture and fine arts.

During the Ottoman rule, the Serbian church initially lost its independence. With the renewal of the Serbian patriarchate in 1577 with its seat in Peć , the Prizren eparchy experienced a new heyday. In 1766 the Serbian patriarchate was abolished and placed under the ecumenical patriarchate . The church institutions in the old core area of Serbian Orthodoxy fell into disrepair. Often strangers were called to be bishops in Prizren. At the same time, the Christian proportion of the population steadily declined until the Muslims were in the majority in the 18th century.

The united diocese in recent times

It was not until 1891 that the Kosovar Serbs received from Sultan Abdülhamid II the promise that their diocese should always be led by a Serb. When Kosovo came to Serbia after the Balkan Wars (1913), the Raška-Prizren eparchy was reintegrated into the Serbian Orthodox Church.

After the First World War, the Serbian Church in Kosovo only managed to a very limited extent to tie in with the great medieval traditions. Furthermore, the Church no longer played an important role in public life in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and much more so in Tito's Yugoslavia . It was not until the 1970s and 1980s that there was a certain revival of church life in the Raška-Prizren eparchy. The number of monks increased again and some orphaned monasteries were repopulated. Bishop Artemije was an important promoter of this predominantly monastic renewal.

Unfortunately, this ecclesiastical renewal coincided with the growth of Serbian nationalism. The neonationalism had its cause in the crisis of the socialist Yugoslav multi-ethnic state. To expand his rule, Slobodan Milošević made use of these Serbian national movements in the late 1980s and directed them not least against the Muslim Albanians in Kosovo. The allegedly threatened Orthodox churches and monasteries in the region played an important role in the arguments of the Serbian nationalists. The Serbian Church in Kosovo has at least not distanced itself from the increasingly aggressive nationalism, partly it let itself be absorbed and partly it was supported by clergy. The Church rarely called for moderation when the Serbs waged war against the other peoples of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

After the end of the Kosovo war in 1999, the Serbian Church in Kosovo fell victim to the triumphant Albanian nationalism. Radical Albanians saw symbols of the old, hated rulers in the Orthodox churches and monasteries. In April 2004 real pogroms took place in which not only the houses of the Serbian minority were destroyed and people were murdered. Around 30 consecrated Christian sites were also destroyed.

Important religious buildings in Kosovo

literature

Marija Janković: Episkopije i mitropolije srpske crkve u srednjem veku. Beograd 1985.

Web links

Diocese website