Saint Nicholas Church In Pristina

(Sofja Rexepi and Sevim)

Miroslav Popadic: I spend some time in the church when I wake up in the morning and then I read. Then I care for the church and clean the churchyard. Thank God, we have nice trees here, linden and walnut. Unfortunately I don’t get newspapers here, I buy them when I go to Gracanica every seven or ten days or visiting friends bring me some time goes fast during the summer and I can go out in the yard, but it’s really hard in the winter, we are locked in this room, and I can only look from the balcony at what is happening in the street.

A day in the life of Pristina Parish Priest Miroslav Popadic who officiates in the Church of Saint Nicholas, one of the oldest churches in the Kosovar capital. The church dates back to 1830, when it was rebuilt on the foundations of a medieval monastery dedicated to Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas Church is famous for its for its iconostasis and engravings – decorated with scenes from the bible in the style of the Debar School of Macedonia, each column in the church differs from the other. Only 2 other churches in the region apparently have comparable iconostasis – the church of Holy Salvation in Macedonia and another in Bulgaria.

Miroslav Popadic: This Church is really quite precious. The Montenegrin bishop Amfilohije who served here ten years ago liked this church so much that he compared it to Jesus’ burial place in Jerusalem. I feel like I’m a guard of the grave of Jesus.

Some 40,ooo Serbs lived in Prishtina before the war and the churchyard was once too small to hold the faithful who flocked to Saint Nicholas for Christmas and Easter services. Today, only a fraciton of Serbs remain in Prishtina, and the churchyard looks immense for the handful od Serbs who continue to visit what has now become the only Serbian place of worship in Prishtina. In the past four years, says Father Miroslav sadly, there have been only four christenings and one wedding.

Miroslav Popadic: There are villages around Pristina and when the need arises I go to them, for, let’s say, christenings, even though there are only a few. Unfortunately, there are more deaths, but it’s difficult for people to come and pick me up to perform that ritual. The biggest problem is movement, freedom of movement. Everything else I think can be solved, except going out…even more so when you are a priest, since I wear the priest’s robe, I am immediately recognizable on the street. That’s the problem.

The past month has seen several stoning attacks of the church of Saint Nicholas. The windows of both the church and the parish house were broken in some of the attacks. Protection duties for the church shifted from KFOR to UNMIK police at the beginning of the year, but according to the parish priest, police patrols have become rare. Father Miroslav prefers to look at the positive side, the situation, he says, has improved compared to 1999 and 2000. And turns a tense situation into a joke – I’ve become a collector of stones he says.

Security or the lack of it aside, the biggest problem for minorities is the same that makes life difficult for other communities in Kosovo, including the Albanian majority – bread and butter issues and how to make it until the end of the month. And priests have it even tougher.

Miroslav Popadic: Priests don’t have salaries. We living off the population, we get paid each time we perform some rituals and we live off that money. But there are no people here. There are no christenings or weddings, so no income that I can sustain myself from.

Despite the hardship the thought of leaving the church of Saint Nicholas has never occurred to Father Miroslav. Or if it does, he is not prepared to act on it.

Miroslav Popadic: Well there are moments when I feel like that, to be honest, but somehow I cannot do it, I would feel sorry to leave the church. I have been here for 20 years. I have been a priest for 29 years and really I have spent the best days of my life in this church. I hope I will not one day feel obliged to leave.

Miroslav Popadic: Thanks God, there is always hope is always here, otherwise I wouldn’t be here. I really hope that better days will come, that spirits will calm down and that we live together again as we lived before.

Father Miroslav Popadic, the parish priest of the church of Saint Nicholas, our guest on UNMIK ON AIR this week.