Orthodox monastery reopens in Kosovo after 520 years in ruins

Orthodox monastery reopens in Kosovo after 520 years in ruins
Agence France Presse - August 15, 2004

BELGRADE, Aug 15 - A Serbian Orthodox monastery at Banjska in northern Kosovo reopened Sunday, 520 years after it was destroyed by the Ottoman Turks.

The Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Pavle, metropolitan (archbishop) of Belgrade presided over the inaugural mass in the presence of thousands of worshippers.

Reconstruction of the monastery coincided with the destruction of other Orthodox buildings in Kosovo in March by ethnic-Albanian extremists.

In three days of anti-Serb violence and looting, 29 monasteries and churches in Kosovo were destroyed, including several jewels of medieval architecture.

More than 150 Serbian religious buildings in Kosovo have been destroyed by the ethnic Albanians since 1999.

The NATO international peacekeeping force, KFOR, this month adopted new security measures to protect the Serbian community and its patrimony in Kosovo. This included establishing a protected zone around the Patriarchate of Pec in the northeast and the monastery of Visoki Decani in the west, which was recently placed on the list of world heritage sites by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.