BISHOP GRIGORIJE: The Church Must Separate from the State, Because Embrace with Government Is Always to Its Detriment!

The Church must separate from the state because that embrace with the government is always to the church’s detriment, said Grigorije, Bishop of Düsseldorf-Berlin and Metropolitan of Germany. Speaking at this year’s Winter Vivaldi Forum, he addressed the relationship between politicians and church representatives, recalling his time as a bishop in Herzegovina and admitting that moving to serve in Germany brought him relief on this matter.

“The first thing the church must do is separate from the emperor. The embrace between the state and the church is always to the church’s disadvantage. I have always advocated for a mild tension in that relationship. We do not have to be enemies, but it is very important that there is a corrective… That embrace with emperors, presidents, governments—it is not good. The church must be outside of that, but, on the other hand, be an example of proper conduct toward the state,” Bishop Grigorije said in a conversation with Vladimir Vučković, held at Mokra Gora during the Winter Vivaldi Forum.

Vučković, as the moderator of this year’s forum, chose an unusual “Late Night” format for the discussion with Bishop Grigorije, attended by around 200 forum participants, according to the magazine Biznis.

The bishop also shared some of his impressions of life in Germany:

“I have lived seven years in Germany and experienced several initial pleasant shocks. One of my friends is a judge in Münster. He is Serbian, and his parents worked in a factory in Germany. He is young, wonderful, and has three children. He completed his doctorate in German tax law on Serbian tax law. And I naively asked him how Serbian tax law compares to German law, and he replied: Well, it’s much better written. It’s just not enforced.”

He emphasized that differences among people are not bad, but divisions caused by differences are:

“We must learn to converse with the principle in mind: I must not hurt his dignity. Freedom equals love, but freedom also equals responsibility. I fear that we have begun to see even people of the highest intellectual capacity converse in ways that fail to respect each other. That is dangerous; it is not Christian. If we wanted to start the recovery of our society, that would be the first painful point. Our pain is that we do not respect others as ourselves.”

On the same topic, the bishop mentioned the tragic case of the canopy collapse in Novi Sad:

“We do not take care of people. Suddenly, a canopy falls on someone’s head, and we act surprised. We should have known this would happen if we do not consider the person more important than GDP, or this or that. The person is the most important. What is all of this worth if you kill a human being?” Bishop Grigorije said.

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Source:Nova.rs, Foto: Printscreen Instagram @vladika.grigorije