SARAJEVO, April 14 (Reuters) — Serbs in Sarajevo celebrated the Orthodox Easter in peace on Sunday as their priest appealed for co-existence among Bosnia's mix of religions and ethnic communities. A couple of hundred people attended the Orthodox Christian service at Saint Michael's church in the city centre, Sarajevo's oldest church, which dates back to the 13th century."This country was like a big bouquet of flowers, flowers of different colours and smells. Every flower was specific unto itself," Metropolitan Nikolai told the congregation. "And everybody wanted to have this bouquet. It was so beautiful. It was like this here once and we hope that it will be again."
Nearly four years of war in former Yugoslavia severely damaged Bosnia's tradition of tolerance among Orthodox Serbs, Roman Catholic Croats and Slavic Muslims. Metropolitan Nikolai is one of two Orthodox priests who stayed in Sarajevo during 43 months of war in which separatist Serb forces laid siege to the city.
The rest of the Orthodox clergy, under pressure from Serb nationalists, fled the Bosnian capital when the conflict began after the Sarajevo government broke with Serbian-dominated Yugoslavia. A large Serb population in Sarajevo has dwindled to some 35,000 since the war in Bosnia erupted in April 1992.
"We have to look towards the future and forget the past," Nikolai said. "The past will be history, a lesson from which we have to learn something... that in the future we have to continue to live and to work together." Saint Michael's church was seriously damaged by shells in the first year of the war but was never vandalised. It stayed open throughout the conflict.
Separatist Serb forces in Bosnia systematically destroyed Islamic mosques on territory under their control. Krstan Bjelac, another Orthodox priest, expressed relief that the service could be held without the sound of gunfire. "This holiday was celebrated during the war under the rain of shells, bombs and sniper bullets &3151; we never lost faith in God and in peace," Bjelac said. "This holiday is a holiday of peace, a victory of life over death."
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