Bishop of Nis Irinej: Patriarch will be elected by Raffle

18/1/2010

The bishop of Nis announced that the patriarch would be chosen on Friday, Jan. 22 at the Serbian Orthodox Church’s electoral congress and that he did not believe that the congress would be extended by a day.

On Jan. 17, Irinej, the Bishop of Nis, said that the new patriarch would be chosen by raffle.

“The patriarch will be solely picked by the bishops and vicars, those bishops who do not have a diocese but are only accessory organs to specific dioceses, have the right to chose, to vote, but not to be chosen. The same applies for bishops who did not spend fives years in a bishopric – they too can vote but not be chosen,” Bishop Irinej said in an interview with the BETA news agency.

He explained that a monk of the Serbian Orthodox Church would pick one envelope out of three envelopes containing the names of the three bishops with the most votes.

Irinej said that even though it was possible to elect the patriarch in a different way this could only be done with a patriarch already elected.

“Without a patriarch there can be no changes. Accordingly, the next patriarch who is chosen, should he wants so, and should the council want so, can revert back to electing a patriarch as prescribed in the constitution. Without a patriarch this cannot be done,” Irinej said.

The Serbian Orthodox Church’s constitution from 1947 prescribes the election of patriarch by a Church-People’s Council. The process later became a raffle.

The bishop of Nis announced that the patriarch would be chosen on Friday, Jan. 22 at the Serbian Orthodox Church’s electoral congress and that he did not believe that the congress would be extended by a day.

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