Destruction of churches and church property on Kosovo in days of March Pogrom (March 17-19, 2004)

Father Myron, who was on duty in the Bishop's residence, informed us in a state of obvious excitement that a huge crowd of people was approaching the Bishop's residence and church with a lot of noise and shouting. The German soldiers were very frightened and disturbed. The Albanians had already begun to smash the windows of the Bishop's residence; some had already broken into the Church of St. George. Father Myron was quickly ordered to prepare to evacuate. With lightning speed, the Germans threw him into an armored transporter and transferred him to the German base. In the meanwhile, the Albanian mob had already broken into the Bishop's residence and set it on fire, while some were helping themselves to anything of value left in the building. A fire was also set in the church of St. George from which the Albanians, according to later testimony, were also removing precious objects. After it burned down, the church was also dynamited so that the entire roof with the dome collapsed. The mass howled in its destructive delirium.

"It is truly incomprehensible that in just one night everything that has been built over the centuries and guarded during the most difficult times in our history has vanished in the flames of madness and violence. The entire Serb quarter of Potkaljaja looks as if it had been air-bombed, the church of Holy Salvation is covered with soot from the fire. The Bishop's residence where I lived for years has been completely destroyed along with everything in it. Frescoes in the Holy Mother of God of Ljevis, some dating back to the 12th century, have been barbarically mutilated, and the church itself shamefully desecrated. Prizren, a city that guarded centuries of cultural creativity and was the pride of the honorable and cultured residents of Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia, and the whole world now looks like a village in Afghanistan," said the Bishop, calling what occurred in Prizren the night of March 17 an act of URBICIDE (murder of a city) (Bishop Artemije on his visit to Prizren, March 25)