Byzantine Blog

Restitution of Serbian Orthodox Church Property in Kosovo-Metohia Province

Raska and Prizren Diocese (encompassing Raska region and the province of Kosovo and Metohia) of the Serbian Orthodox Church will soon receive a decision stating the return of 5,300 hectares of land that was seized from this diocese alone, during the agrarian reform and nationalization process in 1945 by the Yugoslav communist dictatorship, the Serbian government Directorate for Property Restitution Director Vlaidmir Todorovic has said in a statement for Tanjug.

Raska and Prizren Diocese should submit a request to the authorized local organs with the real estate registry offices that are located in all municipalities in Kosovo and Metohia province, so that the ownership could be recorded, the director explained.

Stressing that the deadline for submission of requests for restitution of seized property is Sept 30, 2008, Todorovic said 12 churches and monasteries from Kosovo and Metohia province have submitted requests so far, and that the biggest area of around 3,000 hectares belongs to Monastery of Devic.

Seat of Serbian Orthodox Church, Pec Patriarchate, which is also in southern Serbian province, is the next on this list, seeking restitution of 846 hectares, then the Monastery of Visoki Decani with 728 hectares, Draganac with 207 hectares, Gracanica with 100 hectares, The Holy Trinity near Musutiste with eight hectares, The Saints Cosmas and Damian near Zociste with five hectares, as well as the Church Municipality of Prizren which was stripped of 300 hectares of land in its property at that time, the official said.

Serbian Property in Kosovo Province Estimated at $400 Billion

Few days earlier, Serbia's Trade and Services Minister Predrag Bubalo confirmed that the value of property owned by Serbia and Serbs in Kosovo and Metohia is at around 400 billion USD.

Serbia has the deeds to 58.79 percent of the land in the territory of Kosovo and Metohia — state and social, private, and the property of the Serbian Orthodox Church, which comprises 641,071 hectares of the total of 1,090,410 hectares of land in that southern province.

This is data from the files of the land ownership register for a total of the 1,299 land-registry municipalities in Kosovo and Metohia, and every foot of the southern province is covered by the land registry books, the Belgrade daily Vecernje novosti reported last year.

For security reasons, the bulk of the documents were taken from Kosovo-Metohia to Serbia proper in 1999. On the grounds of these land registry books, the Coordinating Center made a digital land registry plan, so that Serbia now has an electronic database for details on all land owners in Kosovo and Metohia.

“It is fortunate that we were able to bring out the documents,” Slavica Radomirovic told the daily. Radomirovic is in charge of the Land Register with the Serbian Ministry for Kosovo and Metohia, and she was Kosovo-Metohia Land Register Director before the war.

“The first thing that UNMIK asked of us was that the original documents should be returned. Naturally, we refused. As long as we have the originals, Serbia has the proof of what belongs to it. All the copies of the plans and the land register data remained in the computers at the land registry services, so that UNMIK has access to all the data,” she said. Nevertheless, Radomanovic pointed out, any changes can be recorded only in the original documents.

The Way Forward Leads Through Pristina

So, now you know why Serbs laughed their heads off when Condoleezza Rice made a pathetic attempt to persuade them to “drop centuries of grievance and sentimentality in the Balkans and move forward”, meaning, of course, move away from both 1,700 years of their history and property which, in land ownership, covers over 58% of Kosovo-Metohia land. Understandably, Condoleezza prefers not to know that the only way “forward” for Serbs leads straight through Pristina.