Сергей Л. Б.
православный христианин
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JEREMIAH’S LAMENT
+ Bishop Atanasije
of Zahum-Hercegovina and Primorje
Out of the depths I cry unto You, o Lord! O Lord, hasten to me, hear the voice of my prayer, for I cry unto You in the misfortune of my people. Let my prayer flow before You, before Your face, not as the smoke from American bombs that fall over Your people. Do not let my heart lapse into evil thoughts, to do godless deeds with men who treat Your people with tyranny and injustice. Keep us, o Lord, from the traps the tyrants of this world set for Your people! Keep us from the cunningness and hypocrisy of those who do lawless deeds.
You tyrants of this world, you Nebuchanezers and Caesars, Neros and Stalins, Hitlers and Clintons, Brozes and Blairs, learn once and for all the justice of men and of God, and let my people and yours, too, partake of this justice. For you shall be punished by your own evil, for the blood of righteous innocents can be seen not only on your consciousness, but also on your sleeves, the blood of innocent children and old men, of the wounded and of the refugees from Babylon and Jasenovac, from Cyprus and Rwanda, from Topusko and Blazuj, from Banja Luka, Nevesinje, Vrbicki Potok, Tulovic and Ustikolina,Beograd, Kragujevac, Kraljevo and Pristina where your destructive bombs, heavy as your stoneheartedness, brutal in burning, as brutal as your burned consciousness.
How is it possible that you do not see, in your Pilate’s, Stalin’s, French, American and Anglo- Saxon hypocrisy, that God lives and truly sees your lie, sees your cunning wisdom, for, as the Prophet says, it is not in good things that you are wise, but in evil. "Urbi et orbi" you say; peace, peace; but there shall be no peace for as long as you will not have it or allow it. For your doves of peace sow tomahawks and grenades heavy as the stones your hearts are made of, heavy and dangerous as the unexploded grenade of three hundred kilos in the orchard of that serbian farmer, Marko, in Vrbica near Ustikolina, or at Bukvica near Nevesinje.
Judge them, Lord, judge the powerful of this earth, the tyrants and unjust rulers who oppress my people and theirs too, every people on the face of the earth. Damned is the man, and triple-damned is the ruler whose law lies in the mace, in the "tomahawk". It would be better to seek forgiveness from our brothers, the American Indians for using the name of their defending arms for the most deathly weapon -the missile that exterminates innocent and unarmed people, much in the same way as those same Indians were exterminated by the same bloodthirsty tyrants on the wretched so-called New Continent.
But, Lord, You who are above all armies, All- powerful and all-just Judge, You who can examine hearts, let my eyes see Your vengeance over them, for it is to You I have told of my sorrow.
O, Lord, avenger of Justice and orphans, give to the Americans, who are the "hammer of the earth", what You gave to Babylon, who in those times was also the "hammer of the earth." For Yours is the vengeance, o Lord of all armies, as Yours is the Justice, Truth and Love, You are the master of death and life! The Lord has not abandoned His sinful people, even if this land is full of sins towards the Saint of Israel. Admonish us, o Lord, but do not destroy us, visit us with Your presence, but visit also, on the day of Your wrath, our enemies, who are exterminating the inheritance you redeemed with Your own blood. We sit today by the rivers of Babylon, we sit beside demolished bridges and log-houses in villages, we sit and weep... We sit by the rivers of Serbia, Una, Vrbas, Sava, Drina... and we weep bitterly and vow: if we forget thee, Jerusalem, let our right hands forget their cunning!
We cry to You from our centuries-old refugee shelters, ever tearful and bloody, in the forests, and the mountain gorges of the betrayed and sold, crucified and destroyed Herzegovina and Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo:
remember, o Lord, your Edomite sons, American and European, when they uttered: destroy them! Destroy them to the foundations! Daughter of Babylon, whore and executioner! Blessed is the one who pays you for your deeds and blessed is the one who throws and smashes your offspring against a stone.
As true as it is that the Lord lives, so shall our soul live. Amen.
And what of us American Orthodox who weep over the injustices over the skies of Belgrade?
JP
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