Rakocevic: Claims by the Museum in Pec about the Patriarchate of Pec are a scientific, practical, and public absurdity

Journalist and writer from Gracanica Zivojin Rakocevic described the claims by the Museum in Pec that the Patriarchate of Pec “represents a complex of original pre-Romanesque and Byzantine churches that were systematically transformed into Raska-Serbian Orthodox churches” as a scientific, practical, and public absurdity.

Rakocevic questioned those responsible in the Kosovo education system about what they are doing to their own children.

“The key question is, therefore, what are you, ladies and gentlemen, doing with your children and what are you, ladies and gentlemen, doing to your children? How is it possible that you explain in such a way something that they see completely differently? And how is it possible that you have convinced yourselves and them of the idea that the Patriarchate of Pec is something other than what it is? This is a fatal story about the tragedy in the Balkans. It is a fatal story about compensating for your own complexes and shortcomings by lying to your children, by falsifying the truth to your children. These messages are constantly repeated, especially since March 17, 2004, when it was realized that Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija is such that it cannot be destroyed, so it must instead be appropriated,” Rakocevic emphasized in a statement to Kosovo Online.

He pointed out that when taking something that belongs to others, justification must be found.

“In order to take something and claim what is not yours, you must have some kind of justification. Now children in Kosovo and Metohija are being told that Serbs took and transformed Albanian, or Illyrian, or Arber monuments. That is an absolute scientific absurdity. It is a practical absurdity, it is a public absurdity. Yet since March 17, 2004, it has been promoted with great effort in the media, in schools, and in politics. Because how is it possible that something that was never yours in any sense, you suddenly tell your children: ‘This is yours’? That is where conflict is born. Essentially, that is where conflict begins. Because that child will grow up. And that child will say to those who live there, in those churches, in those monasteries, in those communities: ‘They took it from us. We will take it back.’ That is very, very dangerous. And I believe that, unfortunately, good ideas of learning and understanding are being destroyed by bad teachers,” Rakocevic concluded.

As a reminder, students of the “Rifat Gjota” Technical High School, organized by the Archaeological Museum in Pec, visited the Patriarchate of Pec, which was presented as a “complex of original pre-Romanesque and Byzantine churches that were systematically transformed into Raska-Serbian Orthodox churches.”