Day 18: Monastery Bonanza (including sleeping in one!) and a Spiritual Moment
Updated: Sep 12, 2022
5/24/22
On the road once more, we got up early and left Priština to go further south on our progam and explore southern Kosovo.
We are surrounded by beautiful alpine looking jagged, tall mountains
No one can deny the beauty of this area, and this isn't even a good photo!
Today, we got to meet with HALO Trust, the world’s largest humanitarian de-mining organization.
They specialize in land mines (anti tank and personnel), cluster munitions, and other unexploded ordinances. These kinds of weapons can’t distinguish between civilians and military, and a shocking 71% of their casualties are ordinary people uninvolved in the war. Even more horrid- 40% of cluster munitions casualties are children. Many of these fail to function, and remain active waiting until someone trips them. Those are the yellow cans in the picture above, and one can imagine how a child may mistake it for something innocent. In one case, it had the same size and color as humanitarian aid food ration containers that planes dropped.
The presence of unexploded mines in a community has detrimental effects its inhabitants freedom of movement, access to schools and public health. Even more, aid and development is restricted if aid trucks with construction materials and food cannot enter the town without being hit. HALO Trust works to allow families to return home and people to cultivate their land again.
Clearing mines is a highly tedious and not to mention dangerous process. HALO employees move inch by inch, excavating every signal they get on their metal detectors. More so, the presence of land mines means they cannot safely walk on the ground. The safest way to clear an area is to destroy the mines- though in the past they used to disarm them, this is very dangerous and puts their employees at unnecessary risk.
HALO is active in Kosovo, working to clear mines and clusters dropped by NATO in the 90's. NATO's original plan failed- they couldn’t destroy the Yugoslav (Milosevic Serbia aka Rump Yugoslavia) anti aircraft system like they planned, so they chose other targets and had to bomb from higher elevation- and this broad bombing had detrimental effects on the country they were trying to liberate, and brutalized civilians above all. This considered, it's no surprise the people of Serbia and Kosovo see NATO the way they do. Now, luckily the Yugoslav army released their cluster strike maps, which helps HALO know where they need to look, but 20 years later, NATO declines to release theirs. All the easy tasks in the area have been cleared, now the ones that remain are in hard to reach areas up the sides of the steep mountains.
There are still active mines in Serbia, but the state is not willing to acknowledge this and permit HALO to work there. The issue remains.
The health and socioeconomic detriments of unexploded ordinances impact 60 million people worldwide today.
Next stop was the Peć Patriarchate. This was the historical seat of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church for centuries and a UNESCO heritage site. Though we weren't allowed to photograph the inside, the surroundings and the monastery itself was very impressive.
So you can hear the sound of the water and see the sights...
Next up (and my personal favorite) was Dečani Monastery. It has been continuously active for 700 years!
We got a privileged view of the altar area behind the iconostasis, where only the ordained are allowed to walk (and most of the time see!) but the father who gave us the tour himself (another rare privilege) was generous, and we got to see the frescoes behind the altar. In Orthodoxy, they conduct the service from behind the iconostasis.
Most monasteries we visited did not even permit pictures of the inside, but we were invited to do so. These frescoes were incredibly well preserved, and you can see the shine of the gold in the painted halos. I've included some photos that aren't mine so you can get a feeling for how breathtaking the interior is.
The Abbot gave us a moving monologue about how this monastery is still standing 700 years later, through occupation, war, and above all, the most violent conflicts of the last century. He said that this was God's way of telling us, "live here, love each other, do your work, and it will all be alright."
I may have shed a few tears...
:,-)
He also answered our questions- he said some very powerful things. Most impactful to me was how he described how the original meaning of Christianity became misconstrued by humanity somewhere around the time it came to Rome. The God of love became a God of judgement, punishment and legalism, but that the essence of it is that Christ IS love. Reminds me of what I heard somewhere that Christianity exists in spite of people and organized religion 😂, and I understand what that means now.
Another interesting thing I learned is that the origin of the word "sin" comes from the Greek word to miss the target. Very funnily, he called the holy frequency a kind of Divine Wifi, which they are connected to at the monastery, and that allows them to rise above the view most people have day to day and see differently/more clearly. When someone when someone "sins" they do something that they didn't intend to and hurts themselves or others: they miss the target because they were spiritually blind. The Abbot cemented this, citing Mary Magdalene who even cheated on her husband, and Christ (demonstrating he is a God of love instead of judgement) did not shame her or scold her, but simply said "sin no more."
This definition of sin makes so much more moral sense, and thanks to the insightful wisdom of the Abbot, I feel less alienated from organized religion.
He also commented on the situation in Kosovo. The president started her career saying that Kosovo would be a safe home for multiple ethnicities, but Kosovo is quickly becoming less hospitable to non-Albanians. There's also a real problem there with youth wanting to leave, and families still not feeling like it is stable enough to return. The new houses we saw driving in- I noticed many of them had their shutters closed and looked like no one lived there, and he mentioned this too and added that families built them anticipating their return, but they still are empty homes.
They have a garden and a farm there, and we got to enjoy this part of the monastery too!
I had the most beautiful sweet moments as the sun set on the field: the sounds of the cows, a view of the orchard and a monk herding the sheep in for the night. Kitties were friendly and the German shepherd dog was ever so sweet! I found myself there, overwhelmed with a sense of peace and joy to be a part of this wonderful place.
I've never seen sheep herding before, and it was very fascinating and fun to watch!
Very notably, there have been several attacks on this endangered heritage site, as well as many more threats. There are radicals in Kosovo who want to erase anything Serb, even this beautiful place. Now, KFOR, a NATO-led peacekeeping force is stationed there to protect it. They have gates, soldiers and check your passports for entry.
Our final stop was the Monastery of Holy Archangels, where we stayed the night. There is little left of the church besides ruins. The monastery was looted and destroyed after the Ottomans arrived in 1455, and in 1615 it was razed to the ground and its material was used for the construction of a mosque in the town below, Prizren.
The entire complex was archeologically explored in 1927, and its remains were conserved after the Second World War. During the last decade of the 20th century, work on the reconstruction was continued, and in 1998 it again became an active male monastery. After the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and retreat of the Yugoslav army forces, reconstructed objects were burned and looted in June 1999, by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), after the Kosovo Force (KFOR) arrived. During the 2004 unrest in Kosovo, the monastery was burned and looted again.
We got the very special opportunity to stay at the active monastery for a night!
Our beds were summer-camp style, and we got a tasty dinner, of course, a customary drink of monastery-made rakija. It is 100 proof, but you don't shoot it, you sip it. Sometimes that is very hard 🤣
We walked around the ruins and felt the night breeze there on the mountain. I felt in that moment especially grateful to be here, in Kosovo, staying the night at a timeless place.
Ćao for now!
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