Puljic and Irinej in historic meeting

Serbian Patriarch Irinej last week became the first head of the Serbian Orthodox Church to visit the Croatian city of Zadar in recent history, writes Jonathan Luxmoore. He met the head of Croatia’s Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Želimir Puljic of Zadar, at the Orthodox Krka monastery, partially destroyed during the 1990-2 Croat-Serb war. Numbers of Orthodox in Zadar have dropped from 14,000 before that war to 2,100 today.

Archbishop Puljic hoped the meeting would contribute to stability in both countries. Patriarch Irinej said: “We used to live like brothers … We are obliged before God to be brothers” – remarks echoed by Archbishop Puljic.