Holy Assembly of Bishops

BELGRADE - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic hosted a lunch for Serbian Patriarch Porfirije and the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church on Wednesday to discuss all fateful matters for the Serbs and Serbia, as well as looming difficulties in the international political arena, especially with regards to the Kosovo-Metohija issue.

In October last year, at a celebration marking the 800th anniversary of the SPC's autocephaly, or ecclesiastical autonomy, Patriarch Irinej honoured Vucic with the Order of St. Sava 1st Degree, the Church's highest order.

And the Serbian Orthodox Church's position is that Kosovo and Metohija is an integral part of the Republic of Serbia's sovereign territory.

The MPC is a canonically unrecognized church.

The head of the SPC stressed that "Serbia without Kosovo and Metohija is not Serbia."

"Like a person with their heart extracted, is no longer a living person," the patriarch told RIA Novosti, during a visit to Moscow.

Vucic also rejected the assessment that the state behaves as if the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) was "guilty for the issue of Kosovo and Metohija."

"The Church should not make key political decisions, and it certainly has the right to express its opinion," the president said when asked to comment on daily Blic reporting that "the state blames only the Church for Kosovo."

"Patriarch accepted invitation to visit Vatican"

BELGRADE -- Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej has accepted an invitation to visit Catholic Pope Francis in the Vatican, says Catholic Bishop of Zrenjanin Ladislav Nemet.

VIENNA - Bishop Andrej of Austria-Switzerland of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) was enthroned at the Resurrection of Christ Cathedral in Vienna in the presence of political and religious representatives of Serbia and Austria on Sunday.

ZAGREB - The Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana Jovan Pavlovic has died in Zagreb, Croatia, aged 77, the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC) announced on its website.

A bishop of the SPC for as many as 37 years, he first served as the bishop of Lepavina, and then as the vicar bishop of Patriarch German.