Serbian churches in Kosovo: still no light at the end of the tunnel

Potential donors attending a conference in Paris on Friday are being asked for money to help restore the cultural heritage of Kosovo.

At the top of the list are Serbian Orthodox churches targeted by ethnic Albanian mobs during three days of bloody rioting in the province in 2004.

But reconstruction has been held up by the Church's refusal to participate.

The BBC article mentions Prizren and Decani, but notes that

Unesco says that 75 monuments are in need of urgent restoration in Kosovo, 48 of them Serbian Orthodox. Another 14 are in fact Islamic, says Unesco, and they date back to the time when Kosovo was part of the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

I studied some of the Byzantine-era churches in grad school back in the '80s; wish I had been able to visit them then, though it was definitely well off the beaten track. See the world while you still can.

Posted by David on May 16, 2005 10:09 AM