Statement of Metropolitan Porfirije After the Earthquake in Zagreb
Church of Serbia – 25/3/2020
His Eminence Porfirije, Serbian Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, issued the following statement:
“None temptation comes alone. At this moment, when the whole world is trying to cope with the coronavirus, Zagreb has experienced an earthquake this morning. As far as I know, there are no victims among our faithful, but there is certainly huge damage to the buildings owned by our Metropolitanate”, said His Eminence Porfirije.
“First of all, great damage has been done at our Orthodox Cathedral at the Cvetni trg (Flower Square). It is pretty huge and I’m afraid it will be even bigger when we get an insight into the static situation at the Cathedral. However, the Cathedral belongs to the first category of protection of cultural monuments of Croatia. It is, like the Catholic Cathedral in Zagreb, the work of the Austrian architect Hermann Bohle, while the icon painting was rendered by the famous Russian icon painter Aleksander Muhin, who has been in charge of the interior decoration works of the Saint Sava Church in Belgrade”, His Eminence pointed out and added:
“On this occasion, I address all our faithful, and in general, people who have any need due to the coronavirus or due to the consequence of this earthquake, to contact us, to apply to our priests, and we will do our utmost to help them. We believe that God will not forsake us and in this way, He invites us to Himself. It is certain that temptations are never greater than the spiritual strengths that we as humans can endure, especially if we are solitary and functionating as a community.”
