TARGET CHRISTIANITY
May 3, 2004
By Toby Westerman
Copyright 2004 International News Analysis Today
www.inatoday.com
The uncompleted Christ the Savior Cathedral in Pristina, Kosovo, stands as a shocking example of militant Islam's intolerance toward Christianity, and warns of the dark future that lies ahead for Christian civilization if Muslim fanaticism continues to gain influence in the West.
Kosovo stands as a metaphor for the Islamization of once-Christian Europe.
The Orthodox Cathedral is now a public toilet in Muslim-dominated Pristina, the capital of the nominally Serb province. Pristina was founded in the 1300s by a Christian Serbian Tsar, but in recent years its 40,000 Serbs have fled in the face of ongoing attacks from Muslim fanatics.
The growing strength of militant Islam in Western Europe prompted The New York Times to declare in a recent front-page headline that "Militants in Europe Openly Call For Jihad and the Rule of Islam." The Times' article following the headline details Islamic militant activity from England to Switzerland, and recounts the remarks in Geneva of an imam -- a Muslim religious authority -- who urged his followers to "impose the will of Islam on the godless society of the West."
The result of the "will of Islam" is laid bare in Pristina's Serb Orthodox cathedral.
Christ the Savior stands abandoned, wrecked, surrounded by shanties, unguarded, open to all, useful now only to relieve the homeless and passers-by. In response to demands for the church's destruction from militant Muslims, who take offense at the cross which still remains atop the church's dome, the Pristina city council voted to acquire the land for the structure's eventual destruction.
Orthodox Bishop Artemije, a voice for the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, recently lashed out against both Albanian officials and the UN administration in Kosovo, condemning what he branded as "cultural savagery" in Pristina.
Artemije decried the "eradication of Christianity and all Christian civilizational [sic] values" in Kosovo, carried out by Albanian-controlled governmental organizations and what he termed "their sponsors in the UN mission."
Artemije's remarks were reported on the Balkan Internet site Reality Macedonia, and were carried in a press release from the region's Serbian Orthodox diocese.
At this writing, the U.N. administration (UNMIK) has halted full-scale destruction of the church, but has taken no other action to protect the structure.
In mid-March, armed Muslim ethnic Albanian groups attacked the remaining Serb population in Kosovo in what has variously been described as "ethnic cleansing" and a "pogrom," a term usually applied to Russia Tsarist attacks on groups of Jews in the Russian Empire.
The Muslim attacks were purportedly in response to the murder of ethnic Albanian children at the hands of Serbs, but no evidence has yet come to light that the alleged incident actually occurred.
A series of press reports have described the general condition of Kosovo under United Nations administration as tolerant of gun running, human trafficking - male and female - smuggling. It has been described as a way station for Islamic fundamentalist terrorists traveling further into Europe and North America.
Kosovo is not only a center for criminal activity, but also for political instability in southern Europe. The International Crisis Group's report, "Collapse in Kosovo," warns that Kosovo's ethnic and religious violence could spread throughout the entire Balkan region, known historically as the "powder keg of Europe."
According to UN resolution 1244, Kosovo remains under Serbian authority, yet it has been under UN administration and NATO military control since 1999, the year that NATO carried out its successful air war against Serbia, the dominant partner in the now-defunct Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At present, Serbia is part of the tenuous union of Serbia-Montenegro.
The stated purpose of NATO's military action was the defense of Kosovo's ethnic Albanians against the alleged Serbian atrocities, and establishment of a multi-ethnic Kosovo. In the years following the war, no pre-war Serb atrocities in Kosovo have been documented, but the Serb population of Kosovo has been all but driven out of the province.
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