Berane, Montenegro, September 26, 2025
Photo: eparhija.me
The Monastery of the Pillars of St. George near Berane, Montenegro, has been under continuous police surveillance for seven days, with security forces stationed around the 13th-century monastery day and night, according to a statement from the Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Budimlje and Nikšić.
The monastery, which serves as the diocesan seat, has been surrounded by various police formations and official vehicles positioned at all approaches to the holy site, creating what the diocese describes as an “atmosphere of siege” that has caused distress among the monastery’s inhabitants and faithful.
“Such scenes of police encirclement of churches have been seen in recent years only at the height of the persecution of the Church during Đukanović’s totalitarian regime,” the diocesan statement reads, referring to Montenegro’s former long-serving president.
According to reports from Serbian newspaper Politika, both uniformed and plainclothes police have maintained round-the-clock monitoring of the monastery. Interior Minister Danilo Šaranović has directed significant police resources to the Pillars of St. George, with security forces deployed as if criminal activities rather than divine services were taking place within the monastery walls.
The Basic State Prosecutor’s Office in Berane has reportedly issued another summons for His Eminence Metropolitan Metodije of Budimlje and Nikšić to appear for questioning, which he has not answered. Fr. Milenko Ralević, a parish priest from Berane, has also received a new summons and faces the possibility of forced detention if he fails to comply.
The diocese views these legal actions, combined with the police presence, as “an attempt at criminalization and social isolation of the Church through the use of the repressive apparatus,” particularly given the “intense public persecution and anti-Church media campaign” to which the diocese has been subjected in recent months.
This escalation follows tensions from August, when Met. Metodije blessed a controversial World War II monument, leading to his second police interrogation within a month and the detention of clergy members. The diocese has maintained that the Metropolitan has been targeted by authorities since December 2019, when as Bishop of Diokleia he participated in protests against the law by which the state sought to seize Serbian Church property.
“The Diocese of Budimlje and Nikšić expresses its deepest concern about the openly violent attitude of the current regime toward the Serbian people in Montenegro,” the statement concludes. “May God grant that peace and the rule of non-selective justice and law prevail in Montenegro as soon as possible.”
The police siege has drawn condemnation from observers who see it as part of a broader pattern of pressure against the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, transforming a place of prayer and spiritual gathering into what they describe as a demonstration of state power against religious institutions.
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