PRIEST MIROSLAV POPADIC’S TESTIMONY TO THE DEVASTATION OF THE CHURCH OF ST NIKOLA IN PRISTINA

17/3/2011

The Church of St Nicholas in Pristina was among the many sanctities of the Serbian Orthodox Church set on fire by Kosovo Albanians in March 2004. Priest Miroslav Popadić, who had his office in that very church at the time, remembers that well.

On March 17, around midnight, I heard a noise, went out and saw that the churchyard was full of people.

I noticed several policemen among them. Nothing happened at the time, but I had a bad feeling. On the very next morning, I again heard a noise, looked through the window, and saw fire. I saw people shouting, setting the church on fire and breaking everything. I went down to the cellar in order to get out through a small window. It was too late, though, as everything was on fire. I was blocked and there were more than 500 people outside. I was prepared to meet my fate and I said my prayers. However, at the very last moment, a KFOR soldier entered the cellar and took me outside, but did not allow me to take any personal things or relics.

Very soon, I found myself in military precincts in Pristina, together with other expelled Serbs. It was then that I realized how much a priest mattered to people at the most difficult moments.

The most difficult moment of my life, though, was the one when, on my insistence, I went back a day later, accompanied by KFOR, to see the church. Everything was destroyed – frescoes were black and only walls of the church had remained. I could not stop crying and was totally destabilized, says father Miroslav.

To this very day, in his pocket, he keeps the pictures of the church, especially the one of a magnificent wooden iconostasis of the Debar school, as they remind him of the happy times when the church was too small to receive all the believers.

Source: