The church flag removed from the bell tower in Lipljan

The church flag was removed last night from the bell tower in the yard of the churches of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple and Saints Florus and Laurus in Lipljan.

The church caretaker, Jovica Miric, noticed this morning that an unknown person had taken down the flag from the bell tower.

"When I came to work this morning, at eight o’clock, I noticed that the flag was missing from the bell tower. I rewound the cameras and saw that last night, around 17:50, a young man in a tracksuit, with a hood on his head, cut the flag, pulled it down from above, and started running toward the other side of the church gate. Then I called the police. They came for an inspection, took photos, rewound the cameras, and spotted the young man who had cut the flag and taken it away," Miric said.

He emphasized that this flag is displayed only on holidays in Lipljan.

"We put up that flag only for holidays. Yesterday was the Feast of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple, and today we were supposed to take it down. But we didn’t manage to take it down, he took it down," Miric said.

He noted that it was not a state flag, but a church flag.

"They are bothered by the flag, and I tell them that this is a church flag, that it is not a state flag. Last time they took down the flag from the flagpole, I explained to them, and the priest explained to them that it is a church flag, not a state flag, but they are bothered by the flag," Miric said.

The yard of the churches of the Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Lipljan, built in the 14th century, and of the Holy Martyrs Florus and Laurus, built in 1934, is a gathering place for Serbs.

In Lipljan, out of about five thousand Serbs who lived there before the 1998–1999 conflict, only a few hundred remain today.