Batrićević meets with Ecumenical Metropolitan Emmanuel

The Montenegrin historian and professor at the Faculty of Montenegrin Language and Literature met today in Prague with His Eminence, Metropolitan Emmanuel Adamakis of Chalcedon, a close associate of Patriarch Bartholomew and the second most senior hierarch of the Ecumenical Mother Church.

Their half-hour official meeting took place during the prestigious Forum 2000 conference, currently being held in the capital of the Czech Republic.

As reported to Antena M, Batrićević presented Metropolitan Emmanuel with the challenges faced today in Montenegro by Orthodox members of the Montenegrin people, and informed him of the ongoing systematic assimilation of the Montenegrin nation, including its spiritual and secular culture.

 ‘He asked His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel for more active support from the Ecumenical Patriarchate for Montenegrin men and women who wish to preserve their religious and national identity, but are unable to do so due to the absence of their own autocephalous church—one they had throughout history.

The Montenegrin historian expressed particular gratitude to the Ecumenical Patriarchate and to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew for the attention the Mother Church has devoted in recent years to Montenegrin issues. He also presented specific proposals, prepared by a group of Montenegrin intellectuals, on how current divisions could be resolved and how the Montenegrin nation could be granted a church in which it may fully exercise its religious rights.

During his stay at the conference, Batrićević will take part in a panel alongside His Beatitude Epiphanius I, Metropolitan of Kyiv and All Ukraine, where the discussion will focus on Russian influence and the instrumentalization of religion for authoritarian and hegemonic purposes’, the statement said.