Orthodox Serb Priest Aids Embattled Serb Villagers in Kosovo

ORAHOVAC, Yugoslavia, Aug. 15 (RNS)--Two weeks ago, a 75-year-old Serbian man took his three goats to a nearby hillside for an evening graze. That night, the goats returned alone.

All that was found of the elderly man was his cap and walking stick, said Ljubisa Vitoshevich, assigned here by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

One week ago, an empty house once occupied by a Serbian family was gutted by a suspicious fire. It was the fourth such suspected arson attack in this city's Serb quarter in the last 21/2 months.

In the face of such unrelenting pressure, it is less a wonder that 2,100 Serbs have left here in the last year than that 700 Serbs choose to keep on living in the embattled neighborhood.

One of the main reasons the Serbs remain is the Rev. Stefan Milenkovic, a 33-year-old monk who reluctantly left his monastery to work here as a parish priest.

``With a priest, we will stay here longer. It is a kind of spiritual shelter. It gives us courage,'' said Stefan Radic, 55, over a glass of lager beer in the courtyard of his small home. ``In times like this, people return to the church. When there is no one to help you, you go and pray to God.''

Radic, who tends the tomato plants in the church garden, was in a celebratory mood. The night before he had heard from a neighbor, a ham radio operator, that his daughter had given birth to a baby boy in Serbia proper. Lacking any telephones or reliable mail service, the amateur radio is the speediest form of communication between the Serb enclave and the world outside Kosovo.

After NATO-led troops took control of the region in June 1999, the returning majority Albanian Kosovars exacted revenge on the 250,000 Serbs living across the province. Through killings, beatings, abductions and arson, ethnic Albanians used the same tactics that had been used against them by Serbs before and during NATO's 78-day bombing campaign.

To date, an estimated 150,000 Serbs have left Kosovo. Most of them go to Serbia proper, finding it already burdened with ethnic Serb refugees from previous conflicts in the Balkans. Serbian Orthodox Church leaders, who regard Kosovo and its 1,400 religious sites as sacred land, are vigorously encouraging Serbs to stick it out in the province, where the majority Albanians are overwhelmingly Muslim.

When his bishop asked him to leave his post of abbott at a nearby monastery and begin serving in Orahovac's Church of the Holy Mother of God, Milenkovic was not happy at being thrust into the world.

``I am a monk but here I must live with the people,'' said Milenkovic, speaking through a jet black beard so thick it nearly obscures his mouth. ``I don't have as much time for my spiritual life, only late at night or early in the morning.''

In the monastery he would awaken between 2 and 3 a.m. for prayers.

For Milenkovic and other residents of the enclave, the most galling aspect of their existence is the lack of mobility. To leave the warren of narrow, cobblestoned streets lined with simple stone houses topped with red tile roofs is literally to court death. Inside the enclave, the Serbs are protected by coils of barbed wire and guarded by German soldiers in full combat gear. Outside the enclave, 50,000 ethnic Albanians live and work in this bustling, dusty market town.

Any Serb venturing into the town risks being recognized as such by Albanians, for whom memories of Serb violence are still raw. As an Orthodox priest with his flowing beard, waistlength ponytail, black cassock and pillbox hat, Milenkovic is an instant target for those who view the Serbian Orthodox Church as the heart and soul of Serb nationalism.

Milenkovic does not dare leave the enclave without an armed escort from KFOR, the NATO-led force of 47,000 troops in Kosovo.

``It is very hard to get an escort. For the last two months, I have been unable to get an escort,'' said Milenkovic, explaining he could not travel to his Monastery of the Holy Archangel, about a hour distant, to mark its feast day in late June.

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