Speech of His Holiness the Patriarch of Serbia Mr. Porfiria at the celebration of the Day of Serbian Unity, Freedom and the National Flag on September 15, 2024 at the Serbian National Theater in Novi Sad

Here we are, brothers and sisters, gathered for the fifth year in a row on this holiday, a holiday relatively young in its origin, but ancient in its content and its message. From the very name of today's holiday, it is clear that we are celebrating or, better said, mentioning the three key points on which our race rests and which express our identity and our sacred values.

The first of them is unity or as we would say it even more beautifully and popularly - harmony. Unity is not only our Serbian or universal human ideal and imperative. It is found in the very foundations of our Orthodox faith, in the very foundations of the science of Christ. God created this world according to His freedom and love exclusively in order to achieve unity with His creation and so that it could enjoy the inexhaustible treasury of His grace and His gifts. This primarily referred to man as the crown of all creation and as an icon of the Creator himself. But when man fell away from God through original sin, then that blessed unity weakened, and disharmony, divisions and conflicts moved into this world and among people. God, being Love, did not completely reject and abandon man, but called him to Himself in all possible ways, called him to return to that former unity.

The pinnacle of this divine care, i.e. the home-ordering of the salvation of the world and man, happened, as we well know, with the incarnation of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, God and man became one again, and all people were given the opportunity to achieve that unity through His Church, not for a specific period, but for all eternity. By restoring the only true unity between God and man, which was achieved by Christ's coming to the world, His saving mission, the possibility of restoring unity within the entire creation, and first of all among people, was revived.

We see the fruits of this most profoundly and best in the Church, in the Body of Christ, and that already at the very beginning of its earthly existence. The apostle Luke testifies to us in a profound and vivid way, speaking about the life of the first Christian community in Jerusalem: And among the people who believed there was one heart and one soul (Acts 4, 32). This ideal remains a constant task for the Church in all times, but also for every other human community that bases its existence on Gospel principles.

Hence, unity is our ideal, a daily need for us, the people of Svetosava, since our authentic and national heritage, in a word, our comprehensive identity is based on Christ's teaching, in which unity occupies a very special place. This can be seen from the most precious bequest of Saint Sava - from our Mother Church, through which our first archbishop left us the message of the Savior Christ that we should all be one!

Whenever we Serbs turned a deaf ear to that desire of Christ, repeated through the person of Saint Sava, we saw the terrible consequences of the absence of unity, that is, the presence of discord and divisions. That is why it is useful today to remind ourselves and all our compatriots not only in Serbia and Srpska but also in all our earthly homelands, wherever we live, that from our unity, but unity exclusively in good, in love, in justice, in truth, all our happiness and all our successes, both personal and collective, depend on faith in Christ. That is why we must keep unity as the greatest sacred thing, as a promise we received from our ancestors and as a blessing that we should pass on to our descendants.

The second pillar, brothers and sisters, on which our parliamentary national edifice rests, is freedom - again an ideal and imperative that inherits our Serbian heritage, but which is inherent to all of humanity. Moreover, freedom is a divine attribute, because our God is, among other things, absolutely free. As such, He creates man free, but not free to do whatever comes to his mind, which also means evil, but to improve himself and progress in virtue, in benevolence, in holiness. By giving man this only true freedom, the Lord showed that every other external freedom, apart from freedom from evil and sin, is wrong, moreover, false and destructive, and also that no external slavery can destroy a man if he carries within himself the God-given freedom, the freedom of Christ.

Our people experienced this truth deeply, because for centuries, by God's permission, in various regions and times, they suffered the slavish restraints of various enslavers. In those periods when the glory and power of the Serbian state was extinguished and when the Serbs suffered, suffered and suffered at the hands of foreigners, God provided and the spirit of our man was awakened, his faith in God who would not leave his people and who would to make the much-desired freedom shine again, to shine not only so that one could live, work, speak, and sing freely, but also so that one could freely and publicly profess one's faith.

This is exactly why the password of all our subsequent liberation battles and wars read: For the honorable cross and golden freedom. Calling freedom golden, the Serbs showed how much they waited for it and how much they valued it, but also, by mentioning freedom in the context of the cross, our ancestors pointed to the previously stated truth that there is no true, pure and golden freedom without faith, without Christ, that is, without faithfulness to Him and His Gospel. This truth was forgotten by some Serbian sons in certain moments of our history, so in their delusion they misled their own people by offering them freedom without a cross, i.e. a surrogate for that true freedom. The best example of this is the tragic twentieth century, during which, through ideological indoctrination or coercion, efforts were made to liberate or, rather, alienate the children of Svetosava from themselves and their heritage, from their religion and their way of life. We have all seen and tasted the fruits of that false freedom, and unfortunately we are still tasting them today.

Because of all this, it is an equally sacred duty for us to guard our freedom, this external, but above all this internal, because no power in this world can take it away from us except ourselves. Having that inner freedom sooner or later we will get with it everything else that we lack.

Unity and freedom are the golden threads from which our flag is woven. As a feature of our identity, it contains our entire heritage. As such, it represents a kind of deed of the Serbian people wherever they live, but also their identity card before the world. How much our tricolor, with a double-headed cross-bearing eagle on it, expresses our identity and how much it is engraved in our man is clearly shown by the feelings that arise in his heart or mind, in his mind at the very sight of it. No matter how much our man knows or does not know the symbolism of its colors and its coat of arms, in the depth of his being he feels closeness to his flag, he feels respect and pride. And that is because it was sanctified by the struggle, blood and tears of those who fought under it on the battlefield, but also at the negotiating table, for the unity and freedom of their people. Hence, the flag reminds us of all our past, but also of our future challenges.

Brothers and sisters, our nation as a whole is constantly in the great storms of this world's turmoil and temptations. In the time of terrible wars and different battles on different fronts, we need to show wisdom and responsibility towards our country, towards ourselves and towards our neighbors, by trying to preserve harmony, unity and peace in our own house and that we will not let anyone from outside or inside undermines the foundation of our house.

May God grant that with His help and His blessing, as well as with our efforts, we always and in every place preserve the unity of our people in the Republic of Serbia, in the Republic of Srpska and wherever they live. Happy holiday and may the peace of God be with us all!

Source: SPC