The disgraced Serbian Orthodox Bishop Artemije has demanded that he be reinstated as the Kosovo eparch, warning that he would otherwise start "a new church," the Blic website reports today (November 13, 2010).
The Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) stripped Artemije of authority over the Kosovo eparchy last February over his "inability to govern" and shortcomings in fiscal and material accounting.
A group of radical monks from two monasteries in the Kosovo eparchy -- which also includes part of southern Serbia -- rebelled against SPC after Artemije's ouster.
Now, Artemije -- in a letter to the SPC synod from his exile in the Sisatovac monastery in northern Serbia -- is claiming that he was "sentenced without court and sentence."
Artemije's threats come before a meeting of the SPC assembly scheduled for November 17. The SPC did not comment on Artemije's letter.
The turmoil sparked by Artemije could further strain the fragile relations between reformists and hardliners within the SPC leadership, who have been unable to agree on issues ranging from ties with the renegade Orthodox churches in Macedonia and Montenegro to the form of the liturgy.
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