SENIOR clergy and Serbian officials entombed Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej in the crypt of the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade on November 22, two days after the 90-year-old church leader died battling COVID-19.
And while the church appealed for the public to respect ongoing anti-contagion measures amid the raging pandemic, there were some among the hundreds in attendance for the formal ceremony who did not wear masks, risky rites went ahead, and many in the crowd failed to physically distance.
Irinej, a staunch conservative with considerable political sway in the country and region, had led the church for a decade, reported Radio Free Europe.
He tested positive for a coronavirus infection days after presiding over a funeral service attended by thousands for the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church’s arm in Montenegro, Metropolitan Amfilohije, who died in late October at age 82 after falling ill with COVID-19.
Serbian authorities had vowed that crowd-control measures would be implemented to handle the throng of expected mourners in and around the Balkans’ biggest temple for Irinej’s entombment.
In his eulogy on November 22, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said he regarded his relationship with Irinej as more than simply “a relationship between the patriarch and the president.”
He hailed Irinej as having helped shape “a Serbia of peace, which understands [and]…which has no need to hate.”
But he also called him an ally in nationalist Serbian causes including the dispute over partially recognized Kosovo and other pockets of Serbian unity in the region.
“There were no conflicts and quarrels between Serbs east and west of the Drina [River],” Vucic said, adding that Kosovo was “Irinej’s biggest concern.”
Others in attendance included Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic, Montenegrin Prime Minister-designate Zdravko Krivokapic, political representatives of Serb communities from around the region, and Russian Ambassador to Serbia Aleksandar Bocan-Kharchenko, in addition to religious leaders of many faiths.
