The Archbishop of Athens Hieronymos regarding the Papist crimes in Croatia

Orthodox Outlet for Dogmatic Enquiries	Papism

The Archbishop of Athens Hieronymos

regarding the Papist crimes in Croatia

An excerpt from the magazine of the Israeli Community of Athens, "ALEF",

Edition No.20, March-April 2008, in the article titled

“A taste of Archbishop Hieronymos"

(Archiepiskopos Ieronymos-deigmata grafis)

In the year 2000, the Greek translation of the book by Marco Aurelio Rivelli, “The Genocide Archbishop” was published by Proskinio Publications, under the supervision of Nikos Kleitsikas, who had asked from the (then Metropolitan of Thebes) Hieronymos to prologue the book.

The book, which refers to the «genocide of hundreds of thousands Serbs and tens of thousands Jews and Gypsies in Croatia during the 2^nd World War by the Nazis, the Croatian Ustasi and the catholic church…has the title “the Archbishop of Genocide”, since its central character is the (then) catholic archbishop of Zagreb Alojzije (Aloysius) Stepinac, who, together with sections of the Croatian catholic clergy was the protagonist in the slaughters, playing a leading role in the planning and their realization…was convicted as a war criminal, however, the Vatican never accepted this conviction and instead, presented Stepinac as a supposed “victim of Communism”…in the Autumn of 1998 the Catholic Church proclaimed Stepinac a saint.» (Newspaper Rizospastis, 30.06.2000)

In the prologue, Hieronymos writes:

«The tragedy is woven around an objective – the independence of the State of Croatia – an objective that unfortunately justifies every violent method and practice. From the six and a half million citizens of Croatia, more than two million were Orthodox Serbs…All of these people, in the name of the creation of a new Croatia – a homeland of a people “pure” in body and in soul, without any racial mixes, and without any elements that did not conform to their own roman-catholic faith – had to be exterminated.»

«This ethnic-religious cleansing began with external discriminations. Serb citizens were obliged to wear an armband of blue color, with the letter “O” (for Orthodox) printed on it. The Jews had to wear the Star of David – at first on their sleeves and later on their backs. On the mass transport media, there were signs that warned: “Boarding is prohibited to Serbs, Jews, gypsies and dogs”. »

After proceeding to write about the horror of the mass slaughters – with the guilty participation of the Catholic Church in them - he condemns the “beatification” of Stepinac and in closing, proposes that we be led:

«…to the true spirit of the teaching of Jesus Christ: our respect for the other person, without any conflicts, regardless of their descent and their religious convictions, within the framework of a faith that does not add fuel to the fire, but heals the wounds».