The Serbian Orthodox Church was defamed by the new agency “Vijesti”
August 31, 2018 – According to the Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Secretariat of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro expressed its disapproval of the text published by the news agency “Vijesti” as unprofessional and being biased against Orthodox Church. The Montenegrin web-portal Vijesti published the article titled “Incident in pizzeria in Budva – a priest attacked a man from Budva with a bottle“. The article claimed that the police had been after the priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church and a citizen of Serbia, J. B., who had attacked an older man from Budva, two days earlier. The owner of the pizza place passed the details of the incident to the journalist. In the owner’s words a priest, who was sitting in the coffee place next to his, attacked one of his guests, with a bottle in his hands, with no reason and no prior communication, and disappeared afterwards. The owner stated that he had helped his guest by taking him to the nearby ambulance and reported the incident to the police, which, allegedly, later visited the monastery in which the perpetrator could be staying. The police was still looking for the perpetrator at the time of reporting about the incident.
On the same day the Secretariat of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro and the Littoral issued the public statement in which it expressed its concern about repeated and systematic publication of untrue facts in relation to its clergy, and the fact that the above news was afterwards also taken over by other electronic media. The Metropolitanate stated that it was not, as a labeled party in incident, contacted for any information before the publication of the controversial article, whereas the person mentioned in the article was neither a priest nor a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
In the view of the Metropolitanate the Serbian Orthodox Church had been exposed to systematic misrepresentation in the media in Montenegro for many years, which in reality caused open hatred against it.
Sources:
http://www.vijesti.me/vijesti/svestenik-flasom-raskrvario-budvanina-1002320