The Serbian Orthodox Church Municipality of Kotor, after last year’s break due to the reconstruction of the Church of St. Nicholas, continued with the organization of a series of lectures on Thursdays during Great Lent.

Last night, the topic was “Fasting and Contemporary Problems of Society (Divorce, Depression, Illness)”, and an extremely interesting lecture was given in the Treasury of the SPC Kotor by Archpriest Predrag Šćepanović, the hierarchal vicar of Podgorica and Danilovgrad.

“There are people whose lives are so well-fulfilled that even their death cannot discourage us,” wrote Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić, as if he were writing to remember our father Momčilo Krivokapić, to whom I would like to dedicate this humble letter. To the great shepherd, the great priest, who dedicated his entire life to Christ and nothing else could console him. He was synonymous with joy and the Resurrection, and joy and the absence of joy will be one of the themes of this humble letter of mine. We are in Lent. We are now in the middle of the ocean and the Church is throwing us life belts,” said Fr. Predrag.

Fasting, he continued, is an opportunity to see ourselves.

“Fasting originated in Paradise and has lasted approximately as long as the human race has lasted, and the first commandment, which people broke, was the famous commandment of God not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Through this, God wanted to test man, who was still a child. Adam and Eve were immature, and when you give such bliss and beauty and the beauty of Paradise to such an immature generation and people, then you see that the drama and all that we feel today as torment and suffering and pain, that it has its origin, not only in that breaking of the fast, but that it is precisely that cry of Adam, the cry of every person”, says Father Predrag.

God armed Adam and Eve with freedom, and freedom is the air that we breathe with the angels, our guest continues, and emphasizes that it is a dizzying gift because life itself is an expensive game in which we either win everything or lose everything where there is no third lane like on Brajići, so either we follow the path of God or, as the great writer Ljubomir Simović said, “if a man does not go from man to God, he goes to the beast”.

“So, everything is dynamic. The Holy Fathers said that stagnation is already the beginning of the fall. Look at the composition of the earth. Where and what is an earthquake? It is an indicator that God did not create this world as finite. It says there: “The earth and its works will burn up, everything that is on the earth”. So the earthquake itself, the mere movement of those plates horizontally, says that this world is not finite. This world has salvation because it has its Savior. God gave the first people those commandments that they immediately broke at the first temptation. They succumbed. However, even here a wonderful love of God appears for Adam, who sinned and whom He calls to dialogue”, says Fr. Predrag.

He reminds us of the words of Fr. Justin that “every man is a little God in the mud”.

“Every man, when he sins, is like an icon that you found in the mud. "Take, he says, a handkerchief, clean it and raise it, because there is so much good in man that a paradise can be built on it, but also so much evil that a hell can be built on it. That is why evil does not exist, it is a deviation from good," says Father Predrag, adding that fasting is a joy for a longer time, a spring for both the soul and the body, and that we should not only talk about the immortality of the soul but also of the body.

Saint George, he reminds us, suffered in the body, Saint Demetrius, the Prevlaka martyrs... “What shall we do with their bodies? We cannot only say their immortal souls, but also their bodies. They suffered in the body and that is why the Church has great respect for holy relics”.

One of the spiritual conditions of today is unfortunately the old age of the young.

“Today you have young people at the age of 20 who have already become spiritually old and then you realize that a person is not as old as their age but as they feel in their spirit. The spirit of laziness, grumpiness, power-hungryness, idle talk, is a terrible passion that pushes a person to ruin”, continues Father Predrag.

Speaking about virtues, he emphasizes the one “where God forgives both voluntary and involuntary sins” - the virtue of humility.

“It is precisely the humility of Christ that forgives all voluntary and involuntary sins of man”, he says further and reminds us of the Lenten prayer of Saint Ephraim the Syrian: “Lord and Master of my life, do not give me the spirit of laziness, sullenness, love of power and idle talk. The spirit of chastity, humility, patience and love - grant me, Your servant. Oh, Lord King, grant me to see my sins, and not to judge my brother and sister, for You are blessed forever and ever. Amen”.

“Judgement of others and slander are terrible plagues of our time. God’s commandment says “you shall not bear false witness against your neighbor”. I often hear this or that person working for Udba and I wonder how people can take someone else's judgment upon themselves, upon their own soul, I don't understand. But God gave them freedom, and on the Last Judgment, a person will have to answer for every empty word or empty conversation. The Church is preparing us to give a little to the spiritual, as the great Hellenist Miloš Đurić, a wonderful professor, said, to live for the upper part of the body, the zone for the heart, for the soul, for feelings, so that we don't live for the colon. Okay, we also need food, we need fuel, but let's just say that the greatest hermit is the devil himself. He doesn't eat, doesn't drink, doesn't sleep, he only thinks evil of people. He said to Saint Macarius "I fast more than you, I sleep less, I don't sleep at all, but there is one virtue with which you defeated me, and that is humility". "It is precisely this humility of Christ, which was shown by the holy Jews of God, that is our guidepost," said Father Predrag, emphasizing that we in the Church have the Lives of the Saints, we have our path that was walked by Saint Basil of Ostrog, Saint Sava and many other wonderful saints.

He also reminds us that Father Justin said that the 20th century is "the century of atomic technology and jungle ethics" and that as we follow the path of Christ, we encounter divisions among people.

"I will not go into some current events now, but those divisions, who are you for, if you are for this, you are not for that, if you are for the students, you are not for these, if you are for that, then you are for this, are often present... It is precisely this binary code, if you are not for this, you must be for that, Christ won on the Mount of Temptation," he continued.

For today's illnesses, such as depression, anxiety, fear of what will happen tomorrow, what will be, he says that it is a lack of trust in God and reminds us that Saint Seraphim of Sarov said "acquire the spirit of humility and a thousand people around you will be saved".

"Our people in the past were never depressed. Take, for example, "Đuliće uvěoke" by the great Jovo Jovanović Zmaj. We older people know how that song came about. He lost his beloved, he lost five children and two more girls whom he adopted, but he sang. In the Middle Ages, we had almost no cases of suicide. Well, that is exactly what happens today, when people "fall blind", which at one point seems to be the only possible way out, and that is the worst possible way out. So, we need to open up because we live in terrible times, apocalyptic times, times when the words of the visionaries Tarabić from Krema are being fulfilled, who said, “When the fragrance comes out of the field flowers, when the river loses its health and love grows cold among people, great trouble will arise,” said Father Predrag.

He also addressed the influence of social networks.

“I am not against social networks, which also have wonderful content. There is nothing good or bad about them. It all depends on our use or misuse, but I simply see, as a priest, some people whom I have not seen for two or three years, when I read or look at their account, I think that I have met them every day. It is precisely the alienation from each other that creates these diseases in us, mental illnesses, diseases of isolation,” continued Father Predrag.

Love, he emphasizes, is an active thing in this world.

“We should love, and only then be loved. If we wait for others to love us, we will be constantly waiting, like somewhere in that tunnel over Sutorman, where only one car can pass and never forward or backward. That is why love should be the meaning of life, that all other stories should get out of the way of love and that we should breathe love”, said Father Predrag.

Divorces are also a scourge of our time.

“It is something terrible that we all see. Precisely because we have lost trust in our spouse, we have lost trust in God, and have rejected what Stefan Lazarević says in his wonderful work “The Word of Love”: “Young men, preserve your youth, young women, your virginity, chastity”. However, the modern world laughs at that”, says Father Predrag.

He emphasizes that the measure of love is the measure of sacrifice and that this should be proven through deeds and that Christ saw the family as a small Church.

“Elder Paisius said that there is almost no family in the world that does not suffer from one of three types of illness: cancer, divorce or depression. Many people are sick and our famous Vladeta Jerotić said that every illness, from cancer to the flu, is psychosomatic and that everything that happens in the soul finds repercussions somewhere in the body. Father Justin said “I do not recognize a God who did not come in the flesh, who did not suffer, who did not fast, who did not pray… Our God has therefore gone through all of this. God has given us everything, he has given us life, he has given us freedom. But this freedom is a dizzying gift. For many it is the ruin of the soul, and life is short, time is a fragment of eternity. We are closer to that moment of death every day and we simply wonder, and I'm asking myself tonight, is there any joy in this world when we hear that there are so many autistic children, children who don't speak, sick children, divorces… You will rarely see that real smile on people because people do not look at each other. There is simply little laughter, little joy, and precisely because the feeling of joy is the feeling of God, the great Orthodox priest and theologian Alexander Schmemann said that God will forgive all sins of man, but one sin He will not, and that is the absence of joy, and precisely, therefore rejoice and be glad”, says Fr. Predrag.

He emphasizes that Orthodoxy means loving.

“Orthodoxy is Freedom. It did not have the Inquisition. Orthodoxy is the true way of confession, so that we sail the river of Orthodoxy, so that through this fast we can reach that main port, and that port is called the Resurrection of Christ. In those four words, as the saint of our days, Father Justin Popovic the Saint, who sent our father Mom to Kotor, and who said “Christ is risen, He is risen indeed”, in those four words is the destiny of all people, all nations, all generations, my destiny and yours. When the train of human history set off on the tracks of death, He, Jesus, appeared and led it on the tracks of immortality. Let us believe in the Resurrection and that the Resurrection is not just a beautiful custom of coloring eggs. Let us believe in that feeling that we are eternal brothers and sisters”, said Father Predrag.

Christ, he continued, is the Conqueror of death, the risen Lord, who stands at the door of our hearts and knocks, and that “he who opens to Him will enter and dine”.

“Whoever does not open, the Lord will not break the lock by force to enter. Therefore, may this blessed fast be a joy to your souls and bodies, and may the Risen Lord bring the most beautiful moments, days, years and decades of joy and happiness into your lives, amen”, said Fr. Predrag.

The guests and the audience were greeted by the Archbishop's Vicar of Kotor-Tivat, the parish priest of Kotor, Archpriest-Staurophorus Nemanja Krivokapić, announcing a new lecture in this year's Lenten cycle next Thursday.