Petar I (Montenegro)

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Petar I.
Petar I.

Petar I. Petrović-Njegoš ( Serbian - Cyrillic Петар I. Петровић Његош ; † October 31, 1830 ), also Petar Cetinjski, was a Serbian Orthodox metropolitan based in Cetinje and is a saint thaumaturge . As prince-bishop, he ruled what was then Montenegro , which was organized in tribes and administered theocratically by the prince- bishops between 1784 and 1830 . When exactly he was born is not conclusively clear. Most likely, he was born in Njeguši in 1748 . His secular first name has not been preserved. The holiday is observed on the day of his death, October 18th (according to the Julian calendar , greg. Calendar October 31st).

Life

Petar Cetinjski's parents were Marko Damjanov ( Petrović clan ) and Marija (née Martinović). His grandfather was the biological brother of the Metropolitan Danilo Crnogorskog. At the age of ten he was appointed as his successor by the Metropolitan von Skenderlijski and Crnogorski Sava. A life according to the teaching of Christ followed. At the age of twelve he took the name Petar. At the age of 17 he was made a deacon and then stayed in Russia for a year. At the age of 25 he was already Archimandrite (leading abbot of several important monasteries). When Metropolitan von Skenderlijski and Crnogorski Sava died in 1781 at the age of one hundred, Petar Cetinjski was not appointed as his successor as planned. Thereupon he approached Austria with the request to leave him an eparchy in the administrative part of Austria. In 1784, however, the successor of Metropolitan Sava, Metropolitan Arsenije Plamenac , also died, and Petar Cetinjski was born on October 13th . / October 24th 1784 greg. the Prefect charged by Crnogorski, Skenderlijski and Primorsky.

Act

The population of Montenegro was then divided into two groups of larger family clans, the Montenegrins and the Highlanders (Brđani). There were not infrequently armed conflicts between the clans; it was a time of chaos and turmoil. Petar Cetinjski tried to bring peace between the inhabitants of his country. In contrast, he supported efforts to end Ottoman rule. So on July 11th he blessed Jul . / July 22, 1796 greg. , before one of the many battles with the Ottoman vassals (called agars in this region), the insurgent Montenegrin and Highland soldiers. Their army was in a ratio of 1: 3 inferior to the enemy army, which was led by Vesir Buschatlija. The situation was desperate, but the Montenegrins won, and even Petar Cetinjski wrote about a miracle that had happened.

Before and during his tenure, Petar Cetinjski tried to find allies for his Orthodox Christian people, especially in Orthodox Russia, who were enslaved by the Ottomans . However, he did not succeed at first. But that changed after the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War in 1807. Now Petar Cetinjski succeeded in drawing Russian attention to the importance of his vision of a unified Slavoserbian tsarist empire and the opportunities it would open up for Russia in southeastern Europe. An offer by the French forging pacts with the Ottomans, who had conquered Dalmatia under Napoleon , had preceded them. He should be allowed to be elevated to the status of Serbian patriarch . The condition, however, was his departure from the Russian Empire . As a patriarch, however, he would have had to forego his secular power, which he claimed as prince-bishop, in favor of Napoleon and the Ottomans. Furthermore, he would only have been the patriarch of the Serbs and other Orthodox in the area controlled by Napoleon. His acceptance as Patriarch by Napoleon's grace in other areas inhabited by Serbs, which were controlled by the Habsburgs (Slavonia, Vojvodina) and the Ottomans (the rest of Serbia and Macedonia), would have been very little or nonexistent. Despite its importance, Petar Cetinjski rejected this offer to renew the Serbian patriarchate, after it was broken up by the Ottomans at the beginning of the 18th century, probably also because he feared that the Roman Catholic Church could gain too much influence as a result . In addition to the church-political considerations, other political considerations of the prince-bishop were decisive for his decision. The attack of the French republicans on Russia, who had subjugated almost all of Western and Central Europe, and the resulting fall of the Russian Empire, as the only remaining independent Orthodox empire, could in the long run have meant the downfall of Orthodoxy. Petar Cetinjski therefore remained true to his striving for an alliance with Orthodox Russia, regardless of the tensions that his decision had to create in relations with Napoleonic France. Regardless of the lack of enthusiasm of the Russian aristocrats for this alliance striving of the prince-bishop from all sides oppressed Montenegro, which up to the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish war in 1807, but also afterwards until the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a power factor through global political upheavals, was more pragmatic political Pursuing goals. The difficulties in his relations with the Russian Empire (geographically already a world power at that time) brought him serious personal setbacks, which were also at the expense of his subjects. However, this did not prevent him, even in the will, to curse anyone of his own who tried to distance himself from the people of the same blood and people of the same faith (Russians).

Since his influence on Orthodoxy in the regions of Dalmatia and Lika was very small from this point on, even after the Habsburgs had pushed back the French, Petar Cetinjski concentrated his efforts more on the rest of the area inhabited by Serbs under the Ottomans and Habsburgs. He wanted to convince the local Orthodox to work towards a reunification of the tsarist empire, which had developed under the Nemanjids and which, like the Serbian autocephalous church, had been divided into several administrative units as a punitive measure for recurring uprisings during the later course of Ottoman rule.

The idea of ​​the unity of the Orthodox in a re-established Slavoserbian tsarist empire was not realized until after Petar Cetinjski's death in 1830. He had adopted this idea in his early youth from his mentor, Prince-Bishop Vasilije Petrović-Njegoš , who had died under unusual circumstances in Cetinjski's presence in Russia , and who had been the brother, co-regent and right-hand man of Prince-Bishop Sava. However, through his life's work, including the expansion of administration and justice, Petar Cetinjski left behind a solidified social structure in the region, which was previously archaic and characterized by tribal politics. When his grave was opened four years later, his bones are said to have been found with no sign of rot. The opening took place on the instructions of Prince Bishop Petar II. Petrović-Njegoš , Petar's nephew, who traditionally inherited his office from him according to the order of precedence.

literature

Web links

Commons : Petar I. Petrović-Njegoš  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files
predecessor Office successor
Arsenije II. Plamenac Prince-Bishop (Vladika) of Montenegro
1784–1830 		Petar II. Petrović-Njegoš
personal data
SURNAME Petar I.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Petrović-Njegoš, Petar I .; Cetinjski, Peter; Петар I. Петровић Његош (Serbian-Cyrillic)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Montenegrin prince-bishop and Serbian Orthodox metropolitan
DATE OF BIRTH around 1748
PLACE OF BIRTH Njeguši , Montenegro
DATE OF DEATH October 31, 1830