Responding to the invitation of Metropolitan Fotios of Zvornik and Tuzla, Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia visited the city of Bijeljina on June 30, 2025, where he officially inaugurated the exhibition “Longinos the Painter.”
Appropriate greetings for the occasion were delivered by Patriarch Porfirije, Professor Dr. Dubravka Đukanović, Archpriest Nemanja Erak, and Mr. Dragan Davidović, director of the Secretariat for Religions of the Government of the Republika Srpska. The event was also honored by the presence of Mrs. Željka Stojičić, Minister of Education and Culture of the Republika Srpska.
“The drama of this treasury is great, because it endured everything that the Serbian people suffered during the war of the 1990s. However, thanks to the care of responsible people, the treasury was preserved for future generations,” stated Metropolitan Fotios, highlighting especially the role of Mr. Zoran Vapa, director of the Provincial Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments in Novi Sad, and the team of specialists who worked on the restoration of the icons and objects in the treasury, “who after many hours of effort and labor now radiate light.”
Emphasizing the significance of the day for the Diocese of Zvornik and Tuzla, as well as for the entire Serbian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Fotios said that from today the treasury “Longinos the Painter” will continue its mission, as people will be able to visit it and discover the richness of Orthodoxy it carries: “This primarily internal spiritual treasure is seen in the humble gazes of the icons, the consecrated liturgical objects and vessels, the old liturgical books, and the magnificent priestly vestments. All these together form a unity, this treasury, which breathes humility and not pride, and radiates inner spiritual dignity and grandeur,” emphasized Metropolitan Fotios.
Recalling the words of the Holy Gospel that “the good steward brings out of his treasure things new and old,” Metropolitan Fotios noted that, in the biblical sense, the old is what Saint Maximus the Confessor calls “the shadow of future goods,” the foreshadowing in the Old Testament through the Law and the Prophets, which will be fulfilled in Christ: “The New Testament, according to Saint Maximus and other Fathers, is identified with the icon – the icon of future goods. The Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Church is the icon of the Kingdom of Heaven, meaning it is the source of all sacramental life realized in Christ, in the mystery of His Incarnation, His Baptism in the Jordan, His Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, His Passion on Golgotha where the Lord conquered death and through His Resurrection granted eternal life to the world. The Ascended Lord sits at the right hand of the Father, from where He sent the Holy Spirit to His disciples, to His Church, who proceeds from the Father. We partake of this mystery of Christ in the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church; by communing at the Divine Liturgy with the living Christ, we are manifested as His Body and the Church of the Living God, becoming one with Him and with our neighbors.
The Orthodox Church is the Church of the icon. Christ is the icon of God the Father, and we, baptized people, are icons of Christ. The theology of the icon is based on faith in the Incarnation of Christ. Orthodoxy is one with the icon,” stressed Metropolitan Fotios, recalling the words of Saint Basil the Great, who, fighting against the iconoclasts, stated that we do not worship the material of the icon – the stone or the wood – but the Prototype, the icon of Christ, and likewise all icons of the Christified and deified people in the Church.
Referring to the struggle against the iconoclasts, Metropolitan Fotios pointed out that they “remained in the realm of shadow,” and unfortunately something similar happened with Western Christians, who after the Seventh Ecumenical Council, instead of accepting the theology of the icon and the teaching of the Church about it, distanced themselves from the icon mostly because of the influence of secular authority.
“Many Fathers and Venerable Mothers became martyrs during the time of Iconoclasm and by their martyrdom bore witness to the truth of all holy icons, which is based on the Incarnation of the Word of God,” said Bishop Fotios, recalling the words of Saint Athanasius the Great that God became man in Christ so that we humans might become gods by grace: “This is the mission and calling of the icon. It lifts us up to the fullness of life in Christ, which the Fathers called the deification of the person. The Church of Christ, after great martyrdom and struggle against Iconoclasm, experienced great victory at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, where the feast of Orthodoxy, the triumph over all heresies and false teachings, was established. The home of every believing Christian, the domestic Church, is unthinkable without icons, because icons reveal the presence of God everywhere, gathering and calling to prayer. The icon sanctifies both time and space. And this church treasury, like many others in our Church, through its language, introduces us to the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, they are a great treasure and cultural heritage of the Serbian people and their Church.”
At the end of his address, Metropolitan Fotios thanked once again Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia and the Hierarchs for their presence and the honor shown, concluding: “This treasury carries centuries within itself, speaks, and testifies that we are one in Christ and one in the Truth. This is our path of salvation, the way of the God-Man.”
On the occasion of this historic event, the Diocese of Zvornik and Tuzla organized a suitable cultural, artistic, and spiritual program, which was musically accompanied by the Choir of Priests, the Children’s Choir, and the Youth Choir.
