Yesterday I skimmed through Politika daily, a newspaper badly degraded during the 90s, now reduced to a shadow to what it once was thanks to the fact that promoters of Pavle Djurisic are running it. Just imagine Politika – founded by the Ribnikar family, Slovenes who fought, bled and died for Serbia and Yugoslavia in both world wars. It is now being run by a man whose writing makes you imagine he was found drinking beer outside a corner shop on the outskirts of the norther town of Berane, then they put him in a suit and handed him what was once Serbia’s most influential newspaper. Yugoslavia’s New York Times. If anything illustrates what Vucic has done to Serbia, this is it.
That guy seen in front of the Berane store wrote an article yesterday attacking ‘djedoimani’ – the Montenegrins who threaten Milan Knezevic. I was so struck by the term ‘Djedoimani’ that I decided to spend a little time looking into it. The man who now runs Politika – or at least its online edition, otherwise a media servant of Vucic and Bishop Metodije – uses the word to describe people supposedly belonging to the ‘cult of Amfilohije Radović’.
The term ‘djedoimani’ is an obvious allusion to ‘djavoimani’, a word used in Orthodox discourse to describe those believed to be possessed by the devil, that is, people whose bodies and mind are under demonic control. Therefore, it’s more than obvious that Politika has published an article equating Amfilohije with a demon, i.e. with the chief of them all – the devil himself. If you think I am exaggerating, see the link: https://www.politika.rs/sr/clanak/778481/dedoimani-vernik-mcp-priziva-nasilje-nad-milanom-knezevicem.
Of course, the expression didn’t come from the mind of the aforementioned village beer-drinker either. Original thought doesn’t appear to be his strongest suit.
That’s why I did a little research and managed to find the source of the mentioned term being used by the followers of the late, defrocked Bishop Artemije. After the former bishop of Raska and Prizren was expelled, his supporters established a parallel church structure of their own, now headed by a certain Ksenofont.
Their websites, flooded with paranoia and conspiracy theories, with almost everyone in the Serbian Orthodox Church cast as a traitor, were using the term ‘djedoimani” six or seven years ago as a poisoned barb aimed at Amfilohije, whom they held responsible for Artemije’s downfall. Amfilohije and his ‘djedoimani’, led by the first Gojko Petrovcije, as they derisively called the priest Gojko Perovic, were accused then, just as they are now, of sectarianism and of preparing the ground for an autocephalous church in Montenegro.
Back then, those claims came from the defrocked and schismatic clergy of Artemije’s unlawful eparchy. Today, Porfirije and Metodije are making the same claims through their second-rate proxies.
At the risk of sounding immodest, I’d place myself among the top five ‘Serbophobes’ from the times of religious processions, at least according to Belgrade’s pro-government media. In other words, as someone branded an “Ustasha”, as someone who fiercely criticized the Serbian Orthodox Church and its clergy, I never allowed myself to insult Joanikije or Amfilohije in this sort of crude, degrading fashion. Not because of their positions or their authority, but because I was raised better than that.
And Amfilohije was really called a variety of names. Not just by the Montenegrins or the DPS. Some of the strongest insults were once hurled at him by people from the SNP, something everyone now finds convenient to forget. Now, the same crowd from their own ranks are doing it again.
Through his media executioner, Metodije is once again putting the late Amfilohije on trial, just like Rakovic used to do and as Vucic’s other watchdogs have been doing for years. But to be frank, Amfilohije and Atanasije – when they were alive – didn’t spare them either.
(The opinions and views of our columnists aren’t necessarily the opinions or views of the CdM news team)
