the NATO-led peacekeeping force KFOR to end the violence against its believers and buildings, BosNewsLife learned Wednesday July 3.
The appeal came after Orthodox children nearly stumbled over an unexploded grenade, while the monastery of the Pec Patriarchate was stoned, and its nuns verbally abused, said the Keston News Service (KNS), which monitors religious persecution.
In addition hundreds of Orthodox tombstones were reportedly defaced in the troubled Yugoslav province in recent weeks, KNS reported. Church officials said that in one instance 50 tombstones "were found toppled and desecrated" at the old Serbian Orthodox cemetery in Orahovac near the town of Prizren in western Kosovo.
In a related incident, an unexploded hand grenade was discovered outside the early twentieth century Church of St Nikola in Kamenica, said KFOR spokesman Lt Col Gottfried Salchner. "An EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] team was dispatched and a hand grenade was found. The EOD team removed the item and it will be disposed of at a later date," he told KNS.
GRENADE
The Serbian Orthodox Diocese of the towns of Raska and Prizren said that the grenade was found by Serbian children playing in the vicinity of the church. Church officials expressed their concern that the church is not under KFOR or police protection, KNS reported.
The grenade was found shortly after peacekeepers discovered that the Church of St Basil in the Istok municipality, had been raided by vandals. "During a routine patrol in Lubove/Ljubovo on the evening of June 24 2002, a KFOR patrol discovered that someone had forced open the locked door of a church and caused damage to a wooden cross," KNS quoted Lt Col Salchner as saying.
There are reports of similar incidents across the province and church officials have suggested that active Serbian Orthodox Christians are increasingly forced to live in isolated enclaves because of ethnic Albanian extremists.
DESECRATION
A leading Orthodox monk in Kosovo, Fr Sava Janjic, told KNS that by tolerating the desecration, UNMIK and KFOR are seen by the Serbian people and the Church as "directly responsible" for it.
He expressed concern about "the silence and even shameless denials by senior Kosovo Albanian officials, who accuse the Church of propaganda." Janjic said that it confirmed "the overtly antidemocratic and discriminatory orientation of the new Albanian-dominated institutions in Kosovo and Metohija."
However ethnic Albanian officials have denied any wrongdoing. But visiting one of the monasteries recently, Bishop Artemije Radosavljevic expressed his fear that all Serbian Orthodox cemeteries outside Serbian enclaves protected by KFOR might have been seriously damaged.
SHADOW
"This is a crime which will remain a dark shadow over the history of the Kosovo peacekeeping mission and a deep wound in the heart of our people," said Bishop Artemije, in a letter sent to KNS.
Analysts have suggested that the attacks are carried out by ethnic Albanians who seek revenge for their years of suffering under the Serbian troops of former President Slobodan Milosevic, who has been accused of war crimes by United Nations prosecutors.
The Kosovo indictment, issued in 1999, accuses Milosevic of responsibility — along with four other senior Serbs– for the murder of 900 Kosovo Albanians and the expulsion of 800,000 civilians from their homes.
