Appeal From Decani Monastery

A Loving Appeal for the Decani Monastery Relief Fund

IC/XC
NI/KA

School Children in Kosovo Freeze

By Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes

President of the Decani Monastery Relief Fund USA

December 2009

Beloved Friends in Christ our Lord,

May the great peace and joy of our Lord God always be with you!

Once again Kosovo faces a humanitarian crisis, yet another horrific freezing winter, typically ten to twenty degrees below zero for several months.

This year is different because of an electricity problem which makes the freezing conditions even more challenging to the Serbian population in Kosovo/Metohija.

The new independent government is now charging their Serbian customers 29 Euros a month, and incredibly large percentage of their monthly income. If seventy percent of a Serbian village in Kosovo doesn’t pay their bill the whole village will have their electricity turned off.

Schools and the homes of the Serbian population therefore face a problem unlike any other year in recent memory. Putting aside of the question of a permanent solution to the energy crisis in the region of Kosovo/Metohija we offer a partial short term answer for this winters heating crisis. Many buildings and homes in the region have wood stoves, and, as we all know, wood and fire wood have been in short supply for many decades.

Here is what we can do for these suffering people! We can help provide heated school buildings for Serbian children by supplying fire wood to the four schools we support as well as the homes that these children live in.

Send a donation of your choice to the Decani Monastery Relief Fund designating your donation to: Firewood for Schools in Kosovo:


God love and bless you!

Humbly in Christ our Lord,

+Very Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
President of the Decani Monastery Relief Fund Inc. USA

"From this day, from this hour, from this minute, let us strive to love God above all, and fulfill His holy will." -St. Herman of Alaska

http://www.serfes.org
father@serfes.org

Is Tadic's Regime Trying To Starve the Serbian Dioceses?

December 15, 2009
Call For Help From Diocese in Serbia

From: info@eparhija-prizren.com





15.12.2009.
Source: Diocese of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija




CALL FOR HELP
to the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija


The Diocese of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija is forced to turn to the Serbian people in Serbia and Serbian diaspora to ask for help.
Years of living and working under existing conditions have left the Diocese drained of resources necessary for achieving its basic goals.
Assistance sent to the Diocese in the past was sufficient to meet the many needs of the Serbian people in Kosovo and Metohija and to comfort and encourage the Diocese in the performance of its Mission in spite of the enslavement, persecution and having to face daily instances of eradication of all things Serbian.
Recently, however, the situation has seriously deteriorated, while the diocesan economic strength and its ability to respond to the constantly growing needs under increasingly complex conditions is becoming weaker day by day.
The problems with which the Diocese of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija has to deal with on a daily basis are in many ways unique. They require undertaking specific measures, assistance of experts in various areas and formation of organizations which must be able to react appropriately to ever multiplying and unexpected challenges in increasingly difficult conditions.
We have not forgotten the assistance rendered by the Serbian Government in past years.
Today, however, all that has become totally inadequate and quite insufficient to cover effectively the needs of the Diocese in the performance of its basic activities.
For this reason, the Diocese of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija finds itself obliged to turn to the Serbian people in Serbia and in the Diaspora and ask them for help hoping that, within the limits of their ability, which is greatly curtailed by the present financial crisis, they will make an extra effort and help the Diocese to discharge its obligations more fully and more extensively.
Assistance can be sent to the account at the Komercijalna banka and further information obtained by using the following internet address:


INSTRUCTION FOR PAYMENT ORDERS IN FAVOR OF LEGAL ENTITIES IN USD

INSTRUCTION FOR PAYMENT ORDERS IN FAVOR OF LEGAL ETITIES IN OTHER CURRENCIES


The Bishop of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija Artemije

Power Outages Effect Monasteries--Kosovo Government Shows True Colors

From: info@eparhija-prizren.com






30.11.2009.
Source: Beta




Bishop Artemije: Kosovo-Metohija's churches and monasteries
suffer two months' power disconnection


In the beginning of November, the bishop of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohija, Artemije stated that he had addressed an appeal to the authorities in Belgrade and to the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija for three times up to now to find a solution for the problem of more than twenty churches and monasteries in Kosovo that had been suffering power disconnection for two months. However, he has not received an answer yet.
The bishop gave an interview to Beta news agency saying he has still been waiting for the answer since the churches and monasteries could not solve the problem all by themselves by signing a contract with Kosovo Energy Corporation (KEC) because that would mean their acknowledgment of the independent state of Kosovo and Kosovo institutions.
«Periodical statements regarding this matter that are issued in media, we cannot accept as an answer to our appeals,» the bishop said.
«A statement of a daily newspaper has said we must solve the problem all by ourselves. The same statement was lodged with our people when certain villages were disconnected from power supply. The people, left without any help of Belgrade authorities, were compelled to sign a contract with KEC. We are still not ready for such a solution,» the bishop set out.
His Grace also pointed out to the poor condition of Serbian sacred sites. For instance, the church in Samodreza in which the Serbian army received the Holy Communion on the eve of the Battle of Kosovo (1389) but which is today being used as a public toilet.
«Our oldest and most significant church, celebrated in folk songs fom the past, in which saint King Lazar with his army received the Holy Communion on the eve of the Battle of Kosovo (1389), is in a terrible condition beyond any words,» the bishop Artemije said and added «the church is now turned into a disposal of garbage and waste of all kinds.»
He noted that not only was the church in Samodreza desecrated but also many others he was not able to visit.
Electricity disconnection to Serbian sacred sites started on September 2. Today over twenty locations belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) are without any supply of electricity. Some of the mentioned locations are the monasteries of Gracanica, Holy Archangels near Prizren, St Kosmas and Damian in Zociste, Gorioc near Istok, and Devic near Srbica.

Death of Russian Priest who Preached amongst Moslems

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:57:08 +0000
From: vpotapov@comcast.net
To: vpotapov@comcast.net
Subject: Can One Consider the Death of Father Daniel Sysoev to be a Martyrdom?




Can One Consider the Death of Father Daniel Sysoev to be a Martyrdom?

Fr. Daniel Sysoev
Death is the last event in a person’s earthly life. For a missionary, death is the last homily, the last message preached, the last witness for Christ, Whom the missionary loved with complete readiness to sacrifice his or her life for the sake of the triumph of the Faith. Father Daniel Sysoev[1] had prepared himself for this sacrifice long before. Even in his younger years when studying at the Moscow Theological Seminary where this writer taught Fundamental Theology, Father Daniel was pierced through with the fiery conviction that only Orthodoxy contained the fullness of saving truth. Possessed of great talents, as a seminarian he already knew the church canons, and passionately contested with students and instructors when they allowed themselves the slightest compromise. To people who were indifferent to the spreading and deepening of the faith, his aversion to compromise seemed strange; and some of them fell into judgment and condemnation—but his death as a priest in the church which he himself had built, gave proof of his earnestness, his zeal, his single-minded commitment to Jesus Christ and His Church.

From the very beginning of his priesthood, Father Daniel chose the most difficult form of ministry—missionary outreach, which was initiated by the Apostles. In the early Church, missionary work was identical with martyrdom. “The martyrs were preachers of Christianity, continuers of the Apostolic ministry; and this mission they fulfilled precisely as martyrs*, that is, presenting themselves as witnesses.” (Bolotov V.V., Lectures on the History of the Early Church. 1. The Post-Apostolic Church and the Roman Empire. in Russian). After the Bolsheviks seized power in 1918, their first blow was directed specifically against missionaries. Murdered were the missionary Bishop Ephrem Kuznetsov, Protopriests John Kochurov, John Vostorgov, Konstantin Golubev, diocesan missionary Nicholas Varzhansky and other such missionaries. [*martyrs: the Greek root μάρτυς (martys) means “witnesss”.]

Father Daniel Sysoev carried out his missionary activity among Moslems. His Evangelical preaching was very successful: He converted and baptized many people; he received death-threats in response. His answer to such threats was to preach Christ with still greater zeal. Therefore his death is a Christian sacrifice for the sake of the great cause to which he felt called by Jesus Christ. Such a death is an open and manifest victory, because “warriors for Christ are not killed, but crowned” (St Cyprian of Carthage, hieromartyr. Epistle 66).

The early Christians referred to the day of death of their brothers and sisters in the faith as their birthday—birth into a new life. With the coming to earth of the Saviour, mankind’s relationship with death was changed forever. “If we believe in Christ, and if through faith in His word and promises we shall never die, then we ought with joyful daring to go to Christ, by Whom and with Whom we shall live and reign forever. It is through temporal death that we cross over to immortality; and eternal life can begin for us only after our departure from here. And this is not really a departure but only a crossing over or resettlement into eternity after our temporal sojourn on earth. Who would not hasten to cross over to that which is better? Who would not desire to be changed and transfigured according to the image of Christ and the sooner to partake of heavenly glory?” (St Cyprian of Carthage, hieromartyr. Book on Mortality).

To him (or her) who dedicates himself to the service of Christ are given various means to bring people to the Truth: preaching by word, and preaching by one’s life as a living example of self-sacrificing service. These earthly labors for Father Daniel have ended. There remains the brightest and most powerful preaching: the preaching of death. “From henceforth, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: Yea, saith the Spirit, they shall rest from their labours; for their works do follow them” (Revelation 14:13).



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[1] Fr. Daniel Sysoev was shot dead in his church in Moscow on November 19th, 2009.

Hieromonk Job Gumerov