Serbs flood in to Kosovo for new Patriarch's enthroning

Thousands of Serbian pilgrims passed Nato security checkpoints in the western town of Pec yesterday before entering a medieval monastery to attend the enthronement ceremony of their new religious leader, Patriarch Irinej.

• Serbian pilgirms descended on the western town of Pec for the enthronement of their new religious leader Picture: AFP/ Getty

The ceremony, in the Pec Patriarchate, the spiritual seat of the Serbian Orthodox Church, took place just outside the ethnic Albanian-dominated town of Pec. Serbia's president Boris Tadic attended the ceremony.

About 900 Kosovo police were called up to provide security alongside European Union police and Nato peacekeepers, amid fears of infiltration by ethnic Albanians bent on violence.

Police says three ethnic Albanians were arrested for throwing stones at buses carrying Serb pilgrims after the ceremony ended. No injuries were reported. Highlighting the underlying tensions between the ethnic foes, posters were put up overnight showing the Serbian Patriarch against a fiery background with the words "Go to Hell" written across them.

Yesterday, Serb faithful scrambled for space in the complex of churches that Serbs consider the seat of the medieval Serbian state and the Serbian Orthodox Church. Some were draped in the Serbian flag waiting to get a glimpse of their spiritual leader, as liturgies were read out loud.

Many lined up to buy church candles and memorabilia.

The patriarch has urged Kosovo's majority Albanians and minority Serbs to overcome their differences and find a "just solution" for the territory's contested political status.

The two sides are to enter talks on resolving their dispute, although no date has been set yet. Kosovo leaders say they will not back down from their declaration of independence, recognised by 70 countries, including the United States and most nations in the European Union, but are willing to discuss issues regarding the Serb minority in Kosovo's north.

"From this holy place we plead the powerful actors of the world not to burden their souls with sin by finding a solution for this southern Serbian province that will deprive the Serbian nation of its heritage, property, graves of its ancestors and its sacred sites," Patriarch Irinej told the faithful minutes after the ceremony.

The clergy were helped by Italian peacekeepers to make space for more than 40 buses that brought the pilgrims from Serbia. Many of them fled Kosovo in 1999 fearing revenge attacks by ethnic Albanians after Serb forces were driven out by Nato's 78-day bombing campaign.

"I feel great," said Vuk Vuksanic, a Kosovo Serb who escaped into neighbouring Montenegro in 1999. "This is my country. I was born here."

The Serbs cherish Kosovo as the cradle of their history and culture and reject the 2008 declaration of independence by majority ethnic Albanians.Some 10,000 ethnic Albanians, mostly civilians, were killed during the 1998-99 Kosovo war as Serb forces launched a crackdown on the separatist guerrilla force, the Kosovo Liberation Army. Hundreds of Serbs were killed in retaliation attacks after the war, their houses and property burned.

Pec was one of the hardest-hit areas and the ceremony has troubled ethnic Albanians.

"This makes no sense," said Jakup Zeka, an ethnic Albanian. "The same people that have massacred us are coming back. This is intolerable."