reportedly told him they will demolish his church at his own cost. Romanian Orthodox priest, Bojan Aleksandrovic, received the notice because his church in the eastern village of Malajnica has annoyed authorities and the local Serbian Orthodox bishop, human rights watchdog Forum 18 said.
Mayor Radmila Gerov of Negotin, a municipality to whose jurisdiction the village belongs, told the Forum 18 News Service (F18News) that Serbia’s 2003 planning and construction law requires all churches to be approved by the Serbian Orthodox Church before planning permission can be given.
"I have read the law and this is what it says," F18News quoted her as saying. Forum 18 has denied there is a reference in the planning law to a requirement for permission from the Serbian Orthodox Church before any religious building can be approved.
REQUIREMENT DENIED
Aleksandra Rackov of the Ministry of Capital Investments "confirmed the absence" of such a requirement, the group claimed. The Negotin building inspectorate allegedly wrote to Fr Aleksandrovic on August 24 that it would go ahead with the demolition as he failed to demolish the church, its bell-tower and his home himself. He was to receive the bill later.
"The same inspector signed the letter who signed the resolution last winter," the priest reportedly told F18News. Complicating the situation is "the continuing refusal" of the Serbian government to recognize the Romanian Orthodox Church’s diocese in Serbia – which now has 39 parishes, Forum 18 investigators say.
"The Serbian government has backed the claims of the dominant Serbian Orthodox Church to monopoly rights within the country, trying to exclude or restrict not only the Romanian Orthodox, but all other Orthodox communities, including the Old Calendarist Orthodox, the Macedonian Orthodox and the Montenegrin Orthodox" domination, the human rights group claimed. Serbia is the dominant republic of ‘Serbia and Montenegro’, a union that replaced what remained of Yugoslavia, following the Balkan wars of the 1990’s. (With reports from Serbia).
