Patriarch Porfirije leads Orthodox Christmas liturgy in Belgrade's Church of St Sava

BELGRADE - Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church led an Orthodox Christmas liturgy in the Church of St Sava in central Belgrade on Tuesday morning.

The liturgy, which began at 9 am, was attended by a large number of people, including Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic as well as the Roman Catholic Archbishop in Belgrade, Cardinal Ladislav Nemet.

Patriarch Porfirije's Christmas epistle was read out at the liturgy.

In the epistle, the patriarch wished all the faithful that they may warm their hearts with the flame that kept the newborn Divine Child warm and that the joy of family gatherings may turn their homes into the Bethlehem Cave in which Jesus Christ was born.

All those who are celebrating in peace must not forget those who are going through suffering and sorrow and spending these days of joy expelled from their homes, repeating the fate of the Divine Child, he said.

"In prayer, we plea to God to also take into his embrace the innocent victims of the overhang collapse at the Novi Sad railway station. We look into our hearts and at each other, praying to the Lord to give us the strength to keep drawing from that tragic event, as well as from all other mentioned and unmentioned events in the country and worldwide, the cautionary moral that, to each other, we must be brothers, humans, Christ-like, sincere and essentially good," the patriarch said.

He also noted that Serbs in the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija, their ancestral home, had been the most threatened and the most unprotected people in Europe for a quarter of a century now.

"Exposed to pressure, arrests, violent usurpations of municipal self-government units, closure of local health care services, seizures of land and other private property, razing of cemeteries and cultural monuments, they are constantly being intimidated and persecuted. We look upon you, our brothers and sisters in Kosovo-Metohija, with love, respect and gratitude. We admire your faith, your heroism, your patience and plight," he said.