Patriarch: Prayer for peace more powerful than any weapon

BELGRADE - In his Easter message, Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church called on all believers to multiply their prayers for peace and for keeping Kosovo-Metohija a part of Serbia, and noted that "an indirect or direct, a de facto or de iure alienation of the province from the state of Serbia is unacceptable."

He also called for prayers for peace in Ukraine and noted the necessity of preserving the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script.

"Let's unify and multiply our prayers for life in peace for our people everywhere, so that our own or anyone else's suffering may never happen again. You must know that a prayer for peace by believers, a prayer for peace by the Church, is more powerful than any weapon. The bishops and the believers of the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose first name is the Patriarchate of Pec, firmly and unchangeably hold the position that alienation of Kosovo-Metohija from the state of Serbia, indirectly or directly, de facto or de iure, is unacceptable," the patriarch said in the message.

"We pray to the Saviour and advocate living together, in mutual respect and understanding with Kosovo-Metohija Albanians."

The patriarch said the Serbian Orthodox Church especially called for preserving the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script, the foundations of Serbian culture.

"We appeal for establishing a norm for public use of the Cyrillic script, as well as for stopping the violence against the Serbian language and for abolishing the legislative provisions imposing that violence, especially through an unconstitutional law imposing the so-called gender-sensitive language that is a disguise for the fight against matrimony and the family as God-established sanctities and natural forms of man's personal and communal life," the patriarch said.

He also called for prayers for peace in Ukraine, for an end to the suffering of and conflicts between brothers of the same faith and the same blood, and for friendship and love to replace enmity and hatred.

"Today, we pray to the Resurrected Lord especially for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, its hierarchs and its believers, who are being targeted by injustice, violence and persecution," the patriarch said.