Bishop Grigorije of Dusseldorf and Germany from Serbian Orthodox Church said that he was planning to rally as many young people as he can to create a system which will depend on no man.
Bishop Grigorije said that system could be made by the young people he believed in. “My plan is to rally as many educated, honest, smart and brave young people as possible who want to return to Serbia if they aren’t there already and sacrifice themselves to create a system of law first of all. I do not want anything to depend on one man,” he said as reported by rs.n1info.com.
Asked to comment claims that he is a savior, Bishop Grigorije replied saying that no single man existed who could be the savior. “We need to create a system so that we won’t have to look for a savior again,” he said.
The bishop said that he had found young people but refused to discuss his plan in detail when asked if he would actively join in politics in Serbia.
Asked about possible state interference in the election of a new head of the SPC, Bishop Grigorije said that the bishops elect the patriarch but added that it’s evident that the state won’t just sit idly by while the head of one of the most influential institutions is elected.
Serbian Orthodox Church reacted to Bishop Grigorije’s statement
In an announcement, the Serbian Orthodox Church distanced itself from the statement made by Bishop Grigorije, describing them as “exclusively of a political, even of a party character” while adding that the statements “have nothing to do with the faith in Christ the Savior or with the mission of the Orthodox Church.”
The Serbian Orthodox Church clarified that “they are exclusively personal attitude and an engagement of an individual, done not in capacity of a hierarch of the believing People of God, but exclusively in capacity of a citizen.”
Read the full announcement issued by the Serbian Orthodox Church:
The faithful people and the public on general were in the previous festal days, otherwise tormented by the epidemic and the suffering of people and their property by the earthquake in the Banija region, additionally confused by some statements of Bishop Grogorije of Dusseldorf and Germany, which are exclusively of a political, even of a party character, and have nothing to do with the faith in Christ the Savior or with the mission of the Orthodox Church.
The Holy Synod of Bishops feels obliged to inform in this matter all those who the relating political statements attribute to the Serbian Orthodox Church or bring them in any way in connection with her, that they are exclusively personal attitude and an engagement of an individual, done not in capacity of a hierarch of the believing People of God, but exclusively in capacity of a citizen. To what an extent a political or a state-legal activity of bishops and clerics is allowed and blessed, the Church itself exclusively values and judges, autonomously and independently, on the basis of her canonical order.