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Murals and billboards paying tribute to Metropolitan Amfilohije: Digital orthodoxy all over the country

Ever since Metropolitan Amfilohije has died, one could spot a series of murals, billboards and posters not only all over Montenegro, but both Serbia and Republika Srpska, paying tribute to him. Having in mind the current state of play in Montenegro, it’s hard to believe that murals of the late Metropolitan aim to strengthen unity and understanding among citizens. Interlocutors of the CdM portal point out that it’s about an orchestrated campaign, having political and religious connotation that the Serbian Orthodox Church, SPC, uses to tell – we’re here and we’ll change your secular world!

If you ask CdM interlocutors, painted murals and billboards on streets send two messages – one has political connotation and the second aims to create a cult.

A journalist and columnist from the town of Banja Luka, Mr Dragan Bursać, thinks that there’s a religious extremism that manifests through respect of the late Metropolitan Amfilohije

Dragan Bursać
Dragan Bursać

In addition, he adds, there’s a political message and a hint of “refreshment”, i.e. dismissals of political staff and appointment of other people by order of the SPC.

“Simply said – by placing Amfilohije’s billboards, the SPC wants to tell – we’re here and we’ll change your secular world,” Mr Bursać assesses.

An advisor in the Center for Civic Education, CGO, Mr Miloš Vukanović, tells CdM that a series of murals and billboards of the late Metropolitan aims to convey a certain political message and create a cult as well.

Miloš Vukanović

According to him, the organizers of those activities are trying to make a picture of a specific movement or a spontaneous saying that manifests through this kind of “activism”.

In addition, every critique of the work of Metropolitan Amfilohije is being hushed, while the public is flooded with his exaggerated biography.

Asked to say how they perceive the murals and billboards of church bishops on the streets and if they can compare it with the situation in some other countries, Mr Bursać is adamant: “Yes, absolutely”.

“This situation absolutely resembles the Islamic Revolution in Iran under the leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,” he tells CdM.

Mr Vukanović, on the other side, stresses that the clergy on billboards, and more frequently on the murals, is a widespread practice – from Latin America, through Northern Ireland, Iran to India.

 

 

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