Ethnic tensions flare up in Montenegro over church ceremony

By PREDRAG MILIC
Associated Press

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP) — Protesters clashed with hundreds of riot police in the old capital of Montenegro ahead of the inauguration of the new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the small Balkan nation. The ceremony planned for Sunday in Cetinje has angered opponents of the Serbian church in Montenegro, which declared independence from Serbia in 2006. On Saturday, hundreds of protesters confronted the police and broke through a police blockade around the monastery where the inauguration of Mitropolitan Joanikije is supposed to take place. Montenegrins remain deeply divided over their country’s ties with neighboring Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church, the nation’s dominant religious institution. Some in Montenegro want the country to establish its own Orthodox Church separate from the Serbian one.