Kosovo
Orthodox Kosovo, 2026…
Ukraine, Palestine, Cyprus, and now, Kosovo (again). The list of Orthodox Christian states and regions falling into persecution, and outright efforts at total annihilation is getting longer. Systematic political and religious persecution is on the rise against Orthodox Christians, demanding attention and intervention.
Completely ignored by the Western press, the situation in Kosovo has been reigniting, and is described by one major figure of the canonical Orthodox Church, a Metropolitan, as worse than the situation in Ukraine. The long, misunderstood history of Kosovo, dating back to the times of Holy, Glorious and Right-Victorious Great Martyr Lazar, Prince of Serbia (Свети Великомученик кнез Лазар) is seeing another chapter added to the unfortunate and tragic events of the decade of the 1990's. The unreported tensions have escalated to the extent that a prominent Ukrainian Hierarch relates and stridently appeals, “Serbs in Kosovo are suffering greatly—murders, violence, the seizure of churches. The situation is much worse than in Ukraine. All the books being written wouldn't be enough to describe what's happening in Kosovo! They don't need an article, they need international publicity and help.”
The appeal clearly demands the attention of diplomatic corps and political bodies abroad. KFOR's (the UN Kosovo Force) explicit mission is to ensure free movement and maintain a safe and secure environment in Kosovo. This applies to everyone living there, but the government in Pristina is now classifying Kosovo Serbs as “foreigners” under the new ”Law on Foreigners.” This law restricts the movement of Serbs, and extends itself to the seizure of church properties, entities, land titles, and has resulted in violence and murder against the Kosovo Serbs.
Authors of the Serbian website, https://zivotcrkve.rs/, sent the following report and appeal:
Risks and threats to the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija
The position of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija represents one of the most complex, multidimensional, and explosive ethno-confessional nodes in the modern Balkans. In May 2026, the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the SOC issued a programmatic statement expressing extreme concern over the survival of the Serbian people and the uninterrupted functioning of church, educational, and medical institutions in the region. This statement, confirming the unwavering spiritual care for the ancient see of the Patriarchate of Peć and the Diocese of Raška and Prizren, was a reaction to a radical change in the strategy of the authorities in Pristina.
A deep analysis of the current situation, the legal initiatives of the Kosovo government, and the international reaction demonstrates that the threats to the existence of the Serbian Church and Serbian cultural heritage in Kosovo and Metohija have acquired a systemic character. If the period from 1999 to 2004 was dominated by methods of direct physical destruction of shrines and open terror, by 2026 the main toolkit of the Kosovo authorities has shifted to the legal, administrative, and historiographical spheres. A special place in this arsenal is occupied by the implementation of the controversial “Law on Foreigners,” as well as a targeted state policy on the appropriation of Serbian medieval heritage with the aim of constructing a new “Kosovar” or “Illyrian-Albanian” historical identity.
In the spring of 2026, the start of the strict enforcement of the “Law on Foreigners” became a key factor in destabilizing the position of the Serbian community and SOC structures in Kosovo. This normative act, formally adopted back in 2013, entered a phase of active and large-scale application on March 15, 2026. The law regulates the entry, movement, residence, and employment of persons who do not hold citizenship of the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo. However, in the specific realities of the region, it has turned into an instrument of demographic manipulation.
The essence of the problem lies in the fact that tens of thousands of Kosovo Serbs, who have lived in this territory for centuries, do not possess Kosovo documents due to a series of insurmountable administrative barriers created by Pristina. According to the logic of the new law, any person who does not hold a Kosovo identity card is legally classified as a “foreigner” in their own homeland. The Kosovo authorities have established strict rules: Citizens of Serbia are classified as foreigners if they were not born in the territory of Kosovo or did not have a registered place of residence in the region prior to June 10, 1999.
Political scientist Ognjen Gogić and the Mayor of North Mitrovica, Milan Radojević, directly characterized the application of this law as a form of “administrative ethnic cleansing.”
For the Diocese of Raška and Prizren of the SOC, the application of the “Law on Foreigners” poses a direct existential threat. A significant part of the clergy and especially the monastics serving in the ancient monasteries of Kosovo and Metohija (Visoki Dečani, Gračanica, the Patriarchate of Peć, the Holy Archangels, Draganać) are natives of Central Serbia, the Republika Srpska, or Montenegro.
For many years, these clerics lived and carried out their ministry in Kosovo without the need to obtain local documents. As of March 15, 2026, they have been officially transferred to the status of “foreigners.” According to Kosovo legislation, they are obliged to regularly register with the police, limit the duration of their stay (usually up to 90 days), and submit applications for a temporary residence permit.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that there are no clear legal mechanisms for the legalization of monks and priests in Kosovo legislation. Monks do not have the standard employment contracts required to obtain a work visa, and the status of monasteries in the Kosovo legal system does not provide the possibility of issuing invitations for “foreign specialists.” This creates a situation of a deep legal vacuum, the consequences of which are catastrophic for the Church.
Thus, the Pristina authorities obtain the discretionary right to refuse the issuance of a residence permit or ban entry to any cleric under fabricated pretexts. As noted by Archpriest Velibor Džomić, the law allows the police to deport priests, turning them into illegal migrants.
The law also makes the legal arrival of new novices, seminarians, and monks from other regions of Serbia to Kosovo monasteries practically impossible, which over time will inevitably lead to their natural emptying and the fading of liturgical life.
Equally significant is the impossibility of the free movement of the clergy throughout the region. This will critically limit the pastoral care of remote Serbian enclaves, depriving believers of spiritual support.
In its official statement, the Diocese of Raška and Prizren warned that the rigid application of these rules without a transitional regime will lead to unpredictable consequences, urging the international community to prevent legal chaos.
This is compounded by the problem of historical manipulation.
In April 2026, a major scandal erupted when the official museum of the city of Peć organized an educational excursion for architecture college students from the “Shota Galica” (Rifat Đota) secondary technical school to the Patriarchate of Peć—the historical spiritual seat of Serbian patriarchs. During the excursion, the museum's staff archaeologist gave a lecture to the students claiming that the Patriarchate of Peć has an exclusively “Albanian-Byzantine origin,” and that the Serbs only “systematically transformed the first Romanesque and Byzantine churches into Raška-Serbian ones.”
The Institute for Serbian Culture emphasized that such “brainwashing” of the youth raises generations convinced of their legitimate right to “return” someone else's heritage, which carries the risk of violent outbreaks in the future.
Another example: in the official database of the Kosovo Ministry of Culture, Youth, and Sport, the Church of Our Lady of Ljeviš (located in Prizren, built in the fourteenth century, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and heavily damaged during the 2004 pogroms) is officially classified as having an “Illyrian and Dardanian identity.” In addition, Kosovo tourist guides are regularly instructed to tell foreign tourists that the Serbian monasteries are the heritage of the Albanians, temporarily occupied by the SOC.
In turn, influential Kosovo media actively broadcast ideas of appropriation. The newspaper “Koha Ditore” has repeatedly published articles directly stating that monuments such as Gračanica or Dečani are not evidence of Serbian culture, but represent an “ancient Albanian heritage usurped by the Serbs.” Furthermore, in March 2025 on KOHA TV, Professor Jusuf Buxhovi made an outrageous statement that the unfinished Church of Christ the Savior in the center of Pristina should have been demolished immediately after the war. The Diocese of Raška and Prizren characterized this statement as an open call for the destruction of religious objects and blatant hate speech that incites hatred in a volatile region.
As noted by Serbian historians (in particular, Dejan Ristić), the logic of this process carries enormous risks. While material damage from physical vandalism can be restored, altering the identity of an object of cultural heritage is an irreversible loss. Removing the “Serbian Orthodox” marker from official international and domestic nomenclature allows the Kosovo authorities to formally take these objects under their care as “the state property of Kosovo,” definitively removing the Serbian Orthodox Church from their management.
It is equally important to address the problem of vandalism.
To prevent the further destruction of Serbian heritage, the Law on Special Protective Zones (Law No. 03/L-039) was adopted within the framework of the Ahtisaari Plan. This act is designed to protect key Serbian monasteries and archaeological monuments from industrial and commercial construction, deforestation, and the construction of unapproved roads by creating a protective radius (from 50 to 100 meters and more) around the objects of the SOC.
However, this law is systematically, demonstratively, and with impunity violated by Kosovo municipalities.
The most egregious example of vandalism was the events surrounding the ancient (thirteenth century) cave monastery of Saint Peter of Koriša, which is included in the list of fifty specially protected objects of the SPZ.
The Municipality of Prizren (through the Directorate for Economic Development and Tourism), without notifying the SOC and ignoring international institutions, hired the local Albanian company EUROVIA to build a road right up to the saint's cave.
The execution of the works was carried out with the grossest violations. The use of heavy construction machinery led to the undermining of the rock foundation. A significant part of the hill was excavated, creating a permanent threat of landslides and the complete collapse of the monument at the slightest precipitation or seismic activity. Unique medieval frescoes were additionally damaged, construction debris and soil dumps were chaotically scattered throughout the archaeological complex, and an Albanian flag was provocatively hoisted over the hermitage. The Diocese appealed to the missions of the EU, EULEX, OSCE, and KFOR to intervene, pointing out that the contractor had no licenses to work with historical heritage, and the actions of the municipality constitute an act of intentional destruction.
Similar attempts to construct transit highways and infrastructure objects are constantly recorded around the Dečani and Dolac monasteries, which is a direct violation of Articles 5 and 6 of the Law on SPZs.
In addition to administrative vandalism, provocations aimed at the direct seizure of sacred space have intensified.
In July 2025, an unprecedented incident occurred at the ruins of the Serbian Orthodox Monastery of the Holy Virgin of Hvosno (Studenica of Hvosno). Catholic priest Fran Kolaj, accompanied by a group of ethnic Albanians, illegally trespassed into the Special Protective Zone and held a church service there without the permission of the SOC. During the mass, Kolaj delivered an inflammatory, politicized speech in which he called the historically documented Orthodox monastery “ethnic Albanian and Illyrian,” openly inciting hatred towards Serbs and Muslims. The Diocese of Raška and Prizren and the Ministry of Culture of Serbia sharply condemned this act of historical revisionism, emphasizing that such actions are aimed at the forced dissolution of Serbian heritage into a fabricated Kosovar narrative.
Another instrument of pressure is the actions of aggressive marginalized individuals. Albanian citizen Nikola Xhufka, who falsely calls himself an “Orthodox bishop” (but is not recognized by any canonical church), organized a series of break-ins into empty Serbian churches. In July 2025, for the third time, he broke the locks on the doors of the Church of St. Archangel Michael (fourteenth century) in the village of Rakitnica near Podujevo, attempting to hold an illegal church service there and declare the church Albanian.
The situation escalated to such an extent that the OSCE Mission in Kosovo was forced to issue a special statement expressing deep concern over Xhufka's actions and calling on Kosovo's law enforcement agencies to ensure the rule of law and the protection of religious communities from such encroachments.
Against the backdrop of major conflicts, continuous everyday terror does not cease either. According to US reports on religious freedom and the Kosovo Police, dozens of incidents against SOC facilities are recorded annually. In 2025-2026, 26 serious attacks on churches and cemeteries were recorded. In February 2026, perpetrators used sledgehammers to break down the doors of the Church of St. Demetrius in Dobrotin and the Church of St. Nedelja in Gornja Gušterica, ransacking the altar area in search of donations. Parallel to this, graves were desecrated at the cemetery in Skulanevo (in particular, the grave of Ivica Talić, from which Serbian flags were torn off). As local clergy point out, this vandalism has a severe psychological impact, intimidating the remaining parishioners and creating an atmosphere of total defenselessness. Local police traditionally classify these incidents as ordinary robberies, denying the ethnic motive and leaving the perpetrators unpunished.
The complex of the above-described threats comes down to the fundamental lack of resolution regarding the issue of long-term guarantees for the status of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo and Metohija.
According to the so-called Ahtisaari Plan (2007), which formed the basis of the constitutional framework of self-proclaimed Kosovo, the SOC was supposed to receive the broadest institutional guarantees: recognition as a single and distinct religious community, inviolability of property, tax exemption, and the creation of Special Protective Zones. Formally, some of these rights were incorporated into Kosovo legislation.
In practice, as noted by the prominent Serbian intellectual, Islamic scholar, and diplomat Darko Tanasković, Kosovo laws are observed only selectively, and the SOC itself is in a position of being "neither in heaven nor on earth." The most important obstacle is the lack of full legal entity status for religious communities in Kosovo. The Law on Religious Freedoms of Kosovo guarantees equality for all traditional confessions but does not provide a mechanism for their official registration as legal entities. Because of this, religious communities (including the SOC) are deprived of the ability to fully protect their property rights in courts, open corporate bank accounts, or hire staff on behalf of the Church. For years, draft amendments to this law have been deliberately blocked in the Kosovo Assembly, depriving the Church of legal subjectivity.
Visoki Dečani Monastery
An illustration of the complete paralysis of Kosovo's legal system regarding the rights of the SOC is the multi-year saga over twenty-four hectares of land belonging to the Visoki Dečani Monastery—a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Historically, the monastery owned more than 700 hectares of land, which were illegally nationalized by the Yugoslav communist regime after World War II. In 1997, the Republic of Serbia returned only a small portion to the monastery—twenty-four hectares of adjacent agricultural land and forests. However, the municipality of Dečani (entirely controlled by Kosovo Albanians) refused to recognize this fact after the end of the conflict in 1999, attempting to illegally transfer the lands to the fictitious socially-owned enterprises “Iliria” (which owns a hotel) and “Apiko” (a honey factory).
After grueling legal battles lasting 16 years, the Supreme Court of Kosovo confirmed the legality of the monastery's rights in 2012. On May 20, 2016, this decision was finally upheld by the Constitutional Court of Kosovo.
Despite the unappealable nature of the highest court's verdict, local authorities in Dečani (led by Mayor Bashkim Ramosaj) and Albin Kurti's central government blatantly sabotaged its implementation for nearly 8 years. Kurti publicly called the Constitutional Court’s decision “absurd,” claiming that the land was given to the monastery by the “Milošević regime,” thereby undermining the foundations of the rule of law in his own establishment.
The resolution of the problem came only in March 2024, and it had nothing to do with the triumph of justice. Kurti's government ordered the monastery's lands to be entered into the cadastre exclusively under colossal international pressure. The implementation of the verdict was put forward by the ambassadors of the Quint countries (the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy) and Special Rapporteur Dora Bakoyannis as an ultimate and non-negotiable condition for Kosovo's accession to the Council of Europe. As analyst Alen Meta aptly noted, the transfer of the land was a cynical political bargain connected to the visit of US Special Envoy Gabriel Escobar and Pristina's attempt to reduce international pressure on other issues (for example, the ban on the Serbian dinar).
This case irrefutably proves that legal guarantees for the SOC in Kosovo do not work automatically through state institutions. They are realized exclusively under powerful foreign political dictate. Without constant international intervention, the Kosovo judicial and administrative system works exclusively to infringe upon the rights of the Church.
Pristina’s blatant contempt for the rights of the Serbian Church reached its peak when the authorities began to use the freedom of movement of the hierarchs as an instrument of political humiliation and blackmail.
On May 13, 2024, without prior notice or explanation of legal reasons, the Kosovo authorities banned entry into the territory of the region for His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch Porfirije and seven accompanying SOC bishops.
The Patriarch was heading to the historical residence of the Serbian hierarchs—the Patriarchate of Peć—to conduct the ceremonial opening of the regular session of the Holy Synod and the Assembly of Bishops. The vehicles of the higher clergy were stopped by the police at the Merdare administrative checkpoint. As reported by the Director of the Office for Kosovo and Metohija, Petar Petković, the ban arrived just 13 minutes before the expected border crossing, indicating Prime Minister Kurti's deliberate intention to subject the Patriarch to hours of waiting and public insult. Patriarch Porfirije, known for his peacemaking appeals for coexistence between Serbs and Albanians, was forced to return to Belgrade and open the Assembly at the Church of Saint Sava in Vračar.
This unprecedented incident provoked a sharp international reaction. The Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Serbia, Lukas Fourlas, sent an angry letter to the EU leadership (Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola), calling Pristina’s actions “provocative” and a direct violation of fundamental European values and the Brussels agreements on freedom of movement. The SOC bishops in North America (in particular, Bishop Longin) sent an official protest to US Senator Dick Durbin, demanding that the American administration put a stop to religious discrimination by the Kosovo authorities.”
The Serbs in Kosovo have appealed for help beyond just the publication of this or any other article—they are requesting intervention of substance. Recent events and Balkan history serve as a warning to the surrounding states of the Schengen Zone, the European Union, and other Western Governments and their allies, that ignoring a justified appeal by the Kosovo Serbs, along with the clerics and officials named, could result in a repeat of the Balkan Wars and an exacerbation of existing circumstances in Eastern Europe. Moreover, the Orthodox world should lead the way in heading off another tragedy that is already being described as worse than the situation in Ukraine.
