Another Orthodox cemetery and chapel in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the process of harmonizing land registry records, have been registered as state property. This was revealed to Euronews BiH by the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Serbs in the Federation. They warn that these ownership registration procedures are a major problem also for private individuals—Serbs who live outside the Federation of BiH but own property there.
At the Orthodox cemetery in Gornji Vrapčići, near Mostar, local resident Zdravko Antelj speaks about family history, as his ancestors have been buried here for two centuries.
“Here, there is a great-grandfather who was born in 1868. His father is here as well, and his son,” says Antelj.
Both cemeteries in Vrapčići, together with the chapel and the church, were registered by the Municipal Court in Mostar as state property. This was done in the process of harmonizing data between the land registry and the cadastre, which for decades were kept separately, often with differing information.
However, these two cemeteries have for centuries been owned and possessed by the Serbian Orthodox Church Municipality of Mostar, says Duško Kojić, head priest of the Cathedral Church in this city.
“They are still in the possession of the Serbian Orthodox Church today, both in fact and through documentation. In the cadastre we are listed as possessors, and that is good. We have submitted all documentation to the legal team,” Kojić states.
The land registry office of the Municipal Court in Mostar responded that all parties had been informed about this procedure, which was carried out back in 2018, and that they consider the problem non-existent.
“The procedure was announced in two daily newspapers, in the Official Gazette of the Federation of BiH, the Official Gazette of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and on the court’s notice board. How to resolve this non-existent problem? Appropriate procedures to prove ownership rights must be initiated—court litigation or administrative proceedings before the competent institutions. Through this procedure, the Serbian Orthodox Church is not deprived of the right to use, maintain, or build religious buildings or cemeteries,” the document states.
The Serbian Orthodox Church will prove its rights to the cemeteries, church, and chapel in Vrapčići through legal means, as agreed at a meeting with representatives of the Government of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton.
Vrapčići, however, is not an isolated case. The Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Serbs in the Federation of BiH states that the Cathedral Church in Zenica, the church in the Čelebići settlement in Konjic, have also been registered as state property, and today they discovered that the cemetery in Pečuj near Zenica has likewise been registered as state-owned.
“There is no notification by mail, and that is a problem for private individuals, for Serbs who lived in the Federation and today are scattered across the world, in the Republika Srpska or Serbia. They have no knowledge that anything is being done with their land. In Vrapčići we have the case of a private individual—the man is named Maksim Došlo— all of his property, which in the cadastre was registered under Došlo Maksim, son of Risto, was entered in the land registry as state property,” says Đorđe Radovanović, president of the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of Serbs in the FBiH.
The Director of the Office for Public and Cultural Diplomacy at the Government of Serbia, Arno Gujon, called all of this a continuation of a process he had warned about while he was head of the Directorate for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region.
“In the Federation of BiH, for years there has been a so-called harmonization of land registries, where landowners are not personally served summonses, as is the case in the Republika Srpska, but notices are published in official gazettes and certain daily newspapers, which a large number of Serbs in the diaspora cannot access at all. In this way, many Serbs who were forced to leave these areas because of the war lost their property. Now religious property has also been targeted,” Gujon stated.
Gujon called on everyone concerned by this issue to check the status in land registries through offices for free legal aid, which operate in Banja Luka, Doboj, East Sarajevo, Trebinje, Bijeljina, Belgrade, and Novi Sad.
MORE TOPICS:
Source: Euronews;Foto: Printscreen Instagram