Serbian group plans three-day pilgrimage to Kosovo

A citizens’ association from Belgrade, “Badnjak,” has announced that from September 26 to 28 it will organize a three-day pilgrimage from the Serbian capital to Kosovo, during which participants will visit several churches, monasteries and locations inhabited by local Serbs.

On the first day, after arriving in Kosovo, the group will visit the church in Babin Most, the monasteries of Sushicë and Gračanica, as well as the church in Ferizaj. The participants will then continue toward Velika Hoča, where the Church of St. Archdeacon Stephen is included in the program. A group dinner is also planned there, while the participants will spend the night with local families, CE Report quotes Kosova Press.

On Sunday, September 27, the group is scheduled to attend a liturgy in Rahovec, after which it will head toward Prizren. There, participants will visit the Church of St. Petka, the Cathedral of St. George and the Orthodox Seminary of Prizren.

After their stay in Prizren, the pilgrims will travel to the Monastery of the Holy Archangels, where dinner and overnight accommodation are planned.

On the third day, September 28, the group will depart in the early morning for the Dečani Monastery to attend a liturgy. The program will then continue with visits to the Patriarchate of Peć and the church in Vitomirica. The group is expected to return to Belgrade late in the evening.

The announcement for the trip, which is said to cost €90 per person, also mentions a humanitarian component, although no details have been provided about what exactly it will involve.

Pilgrimages from Serbia to Orthodox churches and monasteries in Kosovo are organized on a regular basis. According to material published by KoSSev, there is strong interest in such multi-day trips, and some organizers offer repeated dates throughout the year.

The organizers from “Badnjak” have not announced whether they will engage a tourist guide licensed by the authorities of the Republic of Kosovo for this visit.

Kosovo institutions began implementing the Tourism Law on August 1. Among other things, the law requires that in all cases involving tourist visits, there be a guide licensed by the authorities of the Republic of Kosovo, even if the organizers may have a “foreign” guide.

“Kosovo’s Tourism Law stipulates that a foreign guide who is not registered in Kosovo may accompany a foreign group in the capacity of a tourist escort, but when providing guiding services, they must be accompanied by a guide registered in Kosovo. The law does not stipulate that a religious pilgrimage itself is considered a tourist guiding service,” the law states.

Under Kosovo’s regulations, the licensing requirement applies when a professional tourist-guiding service is provided. Priests, monks or religious representatives who accompany believers in a spiritual capacity are not considered tourist guides solely because of this accompaniment.

Despite this clarification, the issue has triggered strong reactions, including at the highest levels of the Serbian state and within the Orthodox Church. Representatives of the latter have said that visits by believers to monasteries cannot be equated with commercial tourist tours, because monasteries are places of worship, prayer and monastic life.

Photo: Chat GPT