{"id":217653,"date":"2026-09-05T10:39:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:39:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/?p=217653"},"modified":"2026-09-05T10:39:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:39:56","slug":"irenej-spiritually-shot-me-the-theologian-expelled-from-the-church-for-criticizing-vucic-seeks-the-recusal-of-the-bishop-from-the-church-court-deciding-his-fate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serbiantimes.info\/en\/irenej-spiritually-shot-me-the-theologian-expelled-from-the-church-for-criticizing-vucic-seeks-the-recusal-of-the-bishop-from-the-church-court-deciding-his-fate\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIRENEJ SPIRITUALLY SHOT ME\u201d: The theologian expelled from the Church for criticizing Vu\u010di\u0107 seeks the recusal of the bishop from the Church court deciding his fate!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Theologian Blagoje Panteli\u0107 has requested the urgent recusal of Metropolitan Irinej Bulovi\u0107 of Ba\u010dka from the Grand<\/em><\/strong> Church<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Court, which is supposed to rule on his appeal against the decision to expel him from the Church community. Panteli\u0107 accuses Bulovi\u0107 of conducting a public campaign against him while the proceedings are still ongoing, revealing details of his private life and effectively passing judgment on him in advance, even though, precisely as president of the Grand Church Court, he should participate in deciding his appeal. Speaking to Nova.rs, he says that Church institutions are \u201ccaptured and completely ruined,\u201d while describing the metropolitan\u2019s conduct as an attempt at his \u201cspiritual shooting.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the official request submitted to the Grand Church Court, published by the specialized portal Teologija.net, Panteli\u0107 and his legal team provide detailed arguments as to why they believe Irinej Bulovi\u0107 can no longer participate in deciding his case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem they point to is difficult to reduce merely to Church procedures \u2014 Bulovi\u0107 is president of the Grand Church Court and a member of the panel that should decide Panteli\u0107\u2019s appeal, but at the same time he has already made harsh assessments of him publicly and spoken about his expulsion from the Church while the proceedings have not yet been legally concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panteli\u0107 therefore claims that Bulovi\u0107 lost his impartiality long before the time came for him to rule on the appeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking to Nova.rs, Panteli\u0107 says he submitted the request for recusal precisely because of, as he puts it, the \u201cundisguised bias\u201d of the Metropolitan of Ba\u010dka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI submitted the request for the recusal of Metropolitan<\/a> Irinej Bulovi\u0107, who serves as president of the Grand Church Court and is a member of the panel that will decide on my appeal, because of his undisguised bias. I expected the Church institutions themselves to react and sanction him, but they are captured and apparently completely ruined, so the protective mechanisms were not activated, and even after the May Council he remained on the court,\u201d Panteli\u0107 tells Nova.rs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panteli\u0107 claims that Bulovi\u0107\u2019s role is problematic not only because of his recent public appearances, but that the metropolitan has played a significant role from the very beginning in determining how the proceedings against him would be conducted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Constitution applies to everyone except the person who is to be spiritually shot\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He particularly points to the fact that he was not tried by the Church court of his home diocese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy Church judicial proceedings began with a decision by the Grand Church Court that I should be tried not by the Church court of my home diocese, but by a court presided over by Patriarch Porfirije. The decision was made precisely on the basis of Irinej\u2019s interpretation of Article 25 of the Constitution of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This is the first recorded case in the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church in which an interpretation of a provision applies to everyone except the person who is to be spiritually shot,\u201d our interlocutor emphasizes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panteli\u0107 thus suggests that Bulovi\u0107 is not merely an observer in proceedings in which he should now act as a judge, but one of the people who determined their course from the beginning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the metropolitan\u2019s public appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panteli\u0107 points out that after an appeal was filed with the Grand Church Court, Irinej continued publicly attacking him, even though he himself is the president of the institution before which that appeal is pending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the period after I appealed to the Grand Church Court, Metropolitan Irinej conducted a campaign against me, forgetting that as president of that court he must be impartial. As a private individual, he can think whatever he wants about me, but as a member of the judicial panel he must be objective. If he is unable to do that, and apparently he is not, then he must be removed from that judicial panel,\u201d Panteli\u0107 says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also claims that Bulovi\u0107 went a step further and dragged his private life into the public confrontation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat he has done in recent months would make even Constitutional Court President Vladan Petrov ashamed. He even made personal judgments about my private life in the media, knowingly defaming me. He has crossed every line, and in order to preserve the integrity and reputation of the Grand Church Court, Metropolitan Irinej must be immediately suspended,\u201d Panteli\u0107 tells our portal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Irinej said publicly<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is precisely where the most problematic part of the entire case lies. In his request for recusal, Panteli\u0107 documents Bulovi\u0107\u2019s media appearances in which the metropolitan spoke about \u201cthe only case in the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church in which a graduate theologian has been expelled from the Church,\u201d while describing Panteli\u0107\u2019s actions as \u201cspiritual suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is that the decision to expel Panteli\u0107 has not yet gone through the appeal process before the Grand Church Court. In other words, the man who is supposed to participate in deciding whether the first-instance decision will stand had previously spoken publicly about Panteli\u0107\u2019s expulsion as though it were already a concluded matter. Panteli\u0107 cites precisely this as one of the key pieces of evidence that he can no longer expect an impartial decision from Bulovi\u0107.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the allegations in the request, Bulovi\u0107\u2019s public appearances did not end there. Panteli\u0107 claims that the Metropolitan of Ba\u010dka crossed the line beyond even a fierce theological dispute and began publicly making value judgments about his upbringing and family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the document, Bulovi\u0107 said that Panteli\u0107 came from a \u201cnon-Church environment\u201d and had succumbed to \u201cbad influences.\u201d For Panteli\u0107, this too is evidence that the man who will sit on the judicial panel no longer has merely a legal or theological position on his case, but a deeply formed personal attitude toward him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Behind the Church-legal dispute lies a political conflict that is difficult to ignore. For years, Panteli\u0107 has been one of the more outspoken critics of the political activities of the leadership of the Serbian Orthodox Church, its closeness to the regime of Aleksandar Vu\u010di\u0107, the lack of transparency within the Church, and the way certain bishops respond to critics of the authorities and civic protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his request for recusal, he therefore also points to Bulovi\u0107\u2019s interview with the newspaper Pe\u010dat, in which the metropolitan linked support for civic protests to \u201cthe tearing apart of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Panteli\u0107 sees precisely a double standard here: while critics of the authorities within the Church are accused of engaging in politics, one of the most powerful figures in the Serbian Orthodox Church has for years openly expressed political and geopolitical views. His thesis is that the ban on political activity is not applied equally to everyone \u2014 but depends on which political position someone advocates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

READ MORE:<\/mark><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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DARKO MLADI\u0106:,,Moj li\u010dni stav i stav porodice jeste da je izvr\u0161eno ubistvo generala Mladi\u0107a u Ha\u0161kom tribunalu“!<\/a><\/blockquote>