Standing in the Rain by Choice

The latest article from "St. Sava Parish News" presents the events of December 28 as an orchestrated trap—a conspiracy involving police, clergy, and lay volunteers coordinating to arrest parishioners en masse. This narrative requires several factual corrections.

The Invitation Was Public and Genuine

The article's central claim is that Fr. Dragan Vuković's invitation to enter the church was a ruse designed to facilitate mass arrests. This claim is contradicted by a publicly posted announcement from December 26th:

All Are Welcome This Sunday Divine Liturgy will be celebrated at St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral this Sunday, December 28th at 10:00 AM. Everyone is welcome – including those who have received legal notices. Our doors remain open to all who come to pray. We ask only that all who enter conduct themselves with reverence befitting a house of God. This is a place of worship, not a place for protest. There will be zero tolerance for demonstrations or disruptive behavior in the church or on church property. — The Temporary Board of Trustees

The terms were clear and public: all are welcome for worship; demonstrations on church property are not permitted. When the gathered crowd declined to enter for liturgy but remained on church property, police issued a warning to disperse. This is not a "trap." It is the enforcement of publicly stated conditions.

Clarifying the Chain of Authority

The article claims that police announced "the Bishop doesn't want you here," and uses this to frame Bishop Irinej as personally directing law enforcement against parishioners.

This misrepresents the administrative structure of the parish. The Temporary Board of Trustees—not the Bishop—is responsible for property management and coordinates with local authorities when necessary. The Bishop exercises canonical authority over clergy and spiritual matters; the Board handles day-to-day administration including property access.

Any statement by police attributing property decisions to "the Bishop" reflects either miscommunication or a misunderstanding of church governance. The trespass enforcement originates with the Board of Trustees acting in its administrative capacity.

The Purpose of Trespass Notices

The article characterizes trespass notices as evidence of a premeditated mass arrest scheme. In fact, these notices are prepared for specific individuals who have established a pattern of entering church property for purposes other than worship—specifically, to photograph, record, and gather material for protester publications.

Parishioners who come to pray are welcome. Those who come to document and disrupt are not engaged in worship, and the parish has both the right and the responsibility to maintain order on its property.

The Bookstore Cleanup

The repeated claim about "sacred items thrown in a dumpster" refers to a routine cleaning of the parish bookstore. Old, damaged, and unusable items were disposed of as part of facility maintenance. The wheelchair referenced in opposition articles was non-functional and was damaging the terrazzo flooring. There are two brand new wheelchairs.

On the Đujić Letter

The reading of Vojvoda Momčilo Đujić's 1998 letter introduces a claim that deserves careful examination. Đujić wrote:

"The Church properties are managed by the people who acquired them. Our Church cannot do anything without the decision of the Church-People Assembly."

Vojvoda Đujić was an ordained priest, but his expertise was military leadership in wartime, not canon law or systematic ecclesiology. His views on church governance, while sincerely held, do not reflect Orthodox teaching on episcopal authority.

This is not a criticism of Đujić's service to the Serbian people during the war, nor of those who honor his memory. It is simply an observation that church governance is defined by the Holy Canons and the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church, not by the opinions of individuals, however respected, whose expertise lies outside the canons.

Going further, the "Church-People's Assembly" that Đujić invoked has been removed from the life of the Church in North and South America. The governance structure he appealed to no longer exists. The recently published Diocesan Rulebook, approved by the Holy Synod in Belgrade, makes clear that parish priests are "appointed and removed by the competent Diocesan Hierarch" (Article 2) and that clergy answer "exclusively to his Diocesan Hierarch and the Ecclesiastical Court" (Article 18). This reflects centuries of Orthodox practice, not any recent innovation.

A Word on Proportionality

The opposition article compares the Bishop's actions to methods used by the Ustasha during World War II—specifically, the tactic of luring victims into confined spaces before killing them.

This comparison is inappropriate. The reassignment of a priest is a routine administrative action that occurs regularly in every Orthodox diocese. Comparing it to genocide trivializes the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Serbs who perished during the Second World War. Such rhetoric does not advance any legitimate grievance; it only inflames emotions and prevents constructive dialogue.

Who Is Bishop Irinej?

The protester’s narrative requires casting Bishop Irinej as an outsider—a distant hierarch imposing his will on a community he doesn't understand. The facts tell a different story.

Bishop Irinej was born in Cleveland to Serbian immigrant parents. He grew up in this community. His own parents took out a substantial bank loan to help build this very church, donating the funds outright. He was ordained a hieromonk at St. Sava Cathedral in Parma, Ohio in 1995. Cleveland is not foreign territory to him—it is his home. And his family helped build it.

Before his episcopal consecration, then-Hieromonk Irinej served as Coordinator of the Kosovo and Metohija Office for the Holy Assembly of Bishops, advocating for Serbian Orthodox heritage at the United Nations and before the US Government. In 2005, when the Kosovo Ministry of Culture distributed materials falsifying Serbian religious history at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, it was Irinej Dobrijević who led the Church's response, resulting in the publication's withdrawal.

He serves on the Jasenovac Committee of the Holy Synod—the body dedicated to honoring the memory of Serbs martyred in the WWII genocide. He sits on the Advisory Council of the Njegoš Endowment for Serbian Studies at Columbia University and the Editorial Board of the Tesla Memorial Society.

As Bishop of Australia and New Zealand, he achieved what many thought impossible: the defeat of the decades-old raskol—the schism of the "Free Serbian Orthodox Church" that had divided diaspora communities since 1963. This was the same schism that Patriarch Pavle of blessed memory had healed in North America in 1991-1992. In Australia, the division persisted nearly two more decades until Bishop Irinej's appointment. Under his leadership, the two parallel dioceses were reunited in 2010, forming a single Metropolitanate and healing wounds that had separated families for nearly fifty years. When schismatic holdouts challenged the reunification in Australian courts, Bishop Irinej prevailed. He served as Chairman of the National Heads of Churches of Australia. The Holy Assembly of Bishops, recognizing his accomplishments in continuing Patriarch Pavle's work of healing division, elected him by acclamation to the Diocese of Eastern America in 2016.

This is the man being compared to the Ustasha. A Cleveland native. A defender of Kosovo's Serbian monasteries. A member of the Jasenovac Committee. A healer of ecclesiastical divisions. A rebuilder of churches.

The comparison is not merely disproportionate. It is absurd.

The Situation as It Stands

The facts of December 28 are straightforward:

• A genuine, public invitation was extended to all, including those with prior legal notices

• The condition was that attendees come for worship, not protest

• The crowd declined to enter for liturgy but remained on church property

• Police issued a dispersal warning

• The crowd moved across the street

No one was arrested. No "trap" was sprung. The liturgy was celebrated. The doors remained open throughout.

The protesters chose not to enter. That choice, and its spiritual implications, has been addressed in previous articles. What matters here is accuracy: the narrative of a coordinated entrapment scheme is not supported by the facts.

The path to reconciliation remains the same as it has been since October. The church is open. The Eucharist is offered. The invitation stands.

Read the full series on the St. Sava Cathedral situation: Orthodox Integrity