Zvečan, like a city eternally fortified in stone... silently and motionlessly stands on a steep rocky hill, its silhouette barely discernible through the white snowy mist.
Beneath it, the cross atop the dome of the Church of Saint George still (?) stands upright, while the snow whispers softly like ash scatters across the surroundings. A spontaneous visual metaphor of this time.
Text and photo by Ivan Maksimović - the only independent Serbian journalist reporting from Kosovo and Metohija for the past 15 years
From somewhere below, beneath heavy layers of stone, from some dark depth... comes the muffled hum. The seeds of betrayal begin to sprout. The shiver of death slowly covers Kosovo and Metohija, and although we've already stepped into the middle of spring, the spiritual winter is just beginning.
Zvečan, one of the rare fortresses that has never fallen into enemy hands, inspired the saying "Zvečan is eternal", as if asking us: can that which has never fallen be undermined from within today? Not by battering rams, cannons, or bombs, but precisely - by silence. Can it, once unconquerable, be destroyed not by an army, but by a lack of faith?
This quiet siege of faith and identity emerges again from the dark, where it had hidden like leprosy—masked by political correctness, false promises, and empty calls for peace, restraint, and security.
The cross, proudly and dignifiedly rises above the oval dome of the Church of St. George, yet, perhaps more than ever, it bears a strange weight. It, too, stands as both question and answer - about eternity, struggl and sacrifice... seeks to hear the same.
And we... we offer no answers, not even to ourselves. It’s as if, at any cost, we want to hide the fact that we are at war. The one invisible to cameras – but a war inside the very soul of the Serbian people. And so, betrayal continues - unopposed. Now it's too late. Resistance has been reduced to the individual struggle: the lone struggle of individuals to preserve their faith, identity, and memory of one’s roots. That, now, is the extent of our fight.
Just like in the old epics, when a hero cannot be defeated by force, the enemy turns to cunning - to deception, spiritual weakening, and the gradual erosion of meaning.
Today, perhaps more than ever before, the very source of Serbian strength – its Church and its faith – is being deeply undermined. The usurpation of the Raška-Prizren Diocese stands as one of the most painful examples of this process. At a time when open references are made to age-old enemies - not to resist them, but to assist in fulfilling their ancient goal of erasing Serbs from this land - with help, tragically, coming from within, from those who ought to defend it.
And so, the most insidious and powerful attacks are directed precisely at the very foundations of the Serbian being, from which it draws its spiritual strength—its invincibility through soul-wrenching storms and spiritual disorientation—on the Orthodox faith itself, from which it derives strength in suffering and direction in times of chaos.
Everything that is sacred, Serbian, and centuries-old is mocked, dismissed as irrelevant, outdated, obsolete – defeated! But it is not. None of it is. None of that, only, here, there is no one to say it.
Like snow that lulls with its soft whisper, those who ought to be spiritual authorities, instead of kindling a fire in people's hearts, numb every stir of the soul into stillness with sweet-sounding words...
Winter, though it may have passed on the calendar, in a spiritual sense – is only just beginning. It does not come with frost, but with indifference, with weakening faith, with the loss of awareness of the need for spiritual vigilance and self-watch.
Will anyone - before it must be suffering and calamity - awaken the Serbs through the preaching of living faith, warming cold hearts with truth, and calling them to the only path that saves: sincere repentance and fervent prayer?
For not with hollow words, lifeless writings, slogans, or banners... but, they say, only thus - despite the snow and the deathly cold stone shroud - can that which has withstood centuries continue to endure. Eternal.
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