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Orthodox bishops play key role in freeing GIs
Sunday, May 02, 1999 By Ann Rodgers-Melnick, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Although the Rev. Jesse Jackson was the focus of media attention during the religious leaders' mission to free the U.S. soldiers held captive in Belgrade, the effort might have been fruitless without the delegation's Orthodox clergy, including Serbian Orthodox Bishop Kovic Mitrophan of Sewickley.
"We don't care if Jesse Jackson gets all the attention. The bottom line is that we thank God that the prisoners are released and that they are safe and they are going to come home," said the Rev. Stevan Rocknage, pastor of McKeesport's St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church.
"I think this is wonderful, and it would be wonderful if our president now said, 'Okay, I need to give in more on my side now.'"
Jackson and Mitrophan traveled with a delegation organized by the National Council of Churches, which includes all of the major Orthodox churches in the United States.
Although Muslim, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant leaders also went on the trip, it was the Orthodox who predominated. Many of them were already known and respected by key religious leaders in Belgrade.
Mitrophan, a native of Bosnia who is still more comfortable speaking Serbian than English, was appointed bishop of Eastern America nearly a decade ago by the leaders of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade and is well known to Patriarch Pavle.
Also on the trip was the Rev. Leonid Kishkovsky, ecumenical officer of the Orthodox Church in America, who is very experienced in diplomacy with Slavic Orthodox churches overseas.
Bishop Dimitrios, ecumenical officer of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, likewise has important contacts with Orthodox leaders worldwide. And Zoran Hodjers is president of St. Luke Serbian Orthodox Church in Washington, D.C., which organized a large prayer vigil for peace outside the White House during NATO's anniversary last weekend.
"Without the behind-the-scenes work of the Orthodox bishops who are over there, they would not have been able to have an audience with Patriarch Pavle and also a meeting with President [Slobodan] Milosevic," Rocknage said.
The Serbian Orthodox bishops have been among Serbia's most outspoken critics of Milosevic, denouncing his ethnic aggression and defending the rights of the Kosovars.
But they have also said that bombing only creates more victims and solves no problems.
In the United States, Mitrophan is in charge of a committee to send relief supplies to the church in Belgrade and to help refugees from the Balkans who settle in the United States, said Mirjana Filipovic, wife of the pastor of Holy Trinity Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Whitehall.
Immediately after the bombing began, Mitrophan sent a directive to his priests throughout the eastern United States that asked them to ring their church bells and pray for peace daily at 3 p.m. -- the hour in Eastern Time when the first bombs fell on Kosovo.
"In our parish, as it is through all the Serbian Orthodox parishes in this country, we pray for all of the victims of this war, regardless of their ethnic or religious background," Filipovic said.
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