[Decebal]

Unfortunately, many Orthodox Christians are ignorant of the sufferings of the nearly 750,000 Orthodox Serbian Christians who gave their lives in the defense and confession of the faith during the time of the last world war in the so-called "Independent State of Croatia" and in other parts of German-occupied Yugoslavia at the hands of the Croatian nationalists and other enemies of the Orthodox Church, at the instigation of and with the open participation of the Latin clergy. This persecution was aimed at the complete elimination of the Orthodox Church in these areas. Attempts at forced conversion to Catholicism were joined to a systematic and completely overt destruction of every trace of Orthodoxy. All of this was done in such a fierce and inconceivably brutal manner and in such a short span of time and relatively small geographic area that it is difficult even to imagine. Indeed the characteristics of this recent persecution are unprecedented in the history of the Church after the persecutions of the first centuries. The sacrifice and memory of these martyrs must not be allowed to remain hidden, known only to their fellow Orthodox countrymen, but should be published and commemorated for the edification of all Orthodox Christians.

(...) Very revealing as to the utter fanaticism that gripped the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia during these early days of the war and the infant Croatian state, is this excerpt from the diocesan newspaper of the archdiocese of Sarajevo: "Until now, God spoke through papal encyclicals. And? They closed their ears... Now God has decided to use other methods. He will prepare missions. European missions. World missions. They will be upheld not by priests, but by army commanders. The sermons will be heard with the help of cannons, machine guns, tanks and bombers." The Ustasi were known to have publicly taken oaths in the Catholic churches, pledging to work for the eradication of the Serbs and Orthodoxy. Especially militant and very prominent in the Ustasi were members of the Franciscan Order. Immediately after the proclamation of the Ustasi state, the Croatian primate, Archbishop Alojzije Stepinac of Zagreb, gave his blessing in the name of the Roman Church to the Croatian state and established "close collaboration." (It should be pointed out, however, that the Croatian Catholic Church was, at least officially, speaking for itself at that time. The procedure for obtaining recognition by the Vatican was in full progress, but officially the Vatican still recognized the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and had diplomatic relations with the government-in-exile. In short, the Vatican gave de facto recognition to the Ustasi regime, together will full diplomatic protocol at state occasions, though never official recognition.)

(...) The Ustasi plan called for the extermination of one portion of the Serbian population and for the forced conversion to Roman Catholicism of the other. In either case, the Serbs, as an Orthodox people, had no place in the Catholic Croatian state. This shows that in spite of the presence of widespread National Socialist "Aryan" racist propaganda in Croatia, the hatred for the Serbs was based on their being Orthodox. One Catholic periodical in lauding the head of the Ustasi state, Pavelic, praises the Ustasi "Crusader" (Krizar) organization as "Raised in the spirit of radical Catholicism, which knows no compromises so far as principles are concerned, that never knew what it meant to give in and abandon any part of the program of Croatian nationalism." Thus the program of Serbian conversion and/or liquidation, can be viewed as being in the tradition of the medieval crusades which were launched to stamp out the enemies of the Roman church. Archbishop Stepinac saw the Serbs as being schismatics and an evil "almost greater than Protestantism." Croatia was viewed as a bastion of Roman Catholicism in the Balkans. In 1944 a Berlin newspaper wrote: "An extraordinary ecclesiastical struggle is going on in Croatia. The Ustasi government is persecuting the Orthodox Church and is trying to convert as many Orthodox people as possible to Catholicism by means of intimidation and all kinds of devices. At the opening of the so-called Croat Assembly, Pavelic said that religious freedom did exist in principle, but it did not include the Orthodox Church. Apart from nationalistic reasons, Pavelic endeavored to represent himself as a missionary by virtue of his work on behalf of the church, thus desiring to acquire greater prestige. We still recall his visit to the pope at the time when he was just organizing his 'State'."

(...) During the time of the persecution, nearly 300 Orthodox churches in the territory of the Croatian state were destroyed. In the diocese of Karlovac 173 out of 189 temples were demolished. Others were desecrated by being turned into slaughterhouses, stables and latrines. Still others were given over to the Roman Catholics, as were several of the historic Orthodox monasteries. Many of the damaged churches have been restored by the Serbian Church since the war. Others are still to be repaired and can be seen crumbling and abandoned in Yugoslavia today.

The new Serbian martyrs of World War II included five bishops and at least 177 other clergy martyrs. In all, both clergy and lay, they number about 750,000. The late Bishop Nikolai (Velimirovich), over a quarter of a century ago, inscribed into the Church calendar by his own hand the following notation for the date August 31 (0. S.): "The 700,000 who suffered for the Orthodox faith at the hands of the Roman crusaders and Ustasi during the time of the Second World War. These are the New Serbian Martyrs."

Through their prayers may all the Orthodox be saved and strengthened in the defence of the Faith! Amen.

sursa şi mai multe la:

Joachim Wertz, On the Serbian Orthodox New Martyrs of the Second World War. A Brief Historical Background
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/se...ewmartyrs.aspx