01.10.2017.

Minister Vulin at the ceremony of the installation of the Bishop of Dalmatia

Defence Minister Aleksandar Vulin, as a representative of the President of the Republic of Serbia, has attended the solemn enthronement of the newly-elected Bishop of Dalmatia Nikodim Kosović, in the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Holy Mother of God in Šibenik, today.

His Holiness Serbian Patriarch, Mr. Irinej, presided over mass and the ceremony with bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Metropolitan Porfirije of Zagreb-Ljubljana.

After the ceremony, Minister Vulin pointed out that the President of the Republic of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić and the Government of the Republic of Serbia are taking care of every Serb regardless of where they live, especially about Serbs who live hard, especially those who are confronted with misunderstanding, sometimes hatred, and almost always with unpunished attacks on themselves.

- The Government of the Republic of Serbia and the President of the Republic of Serbia will do everything to make these people feel better here and through talks with the Croatian state to really change their life for the better. There are Serbian villages in Dalmatia where there are no roads, and in many of them there is even no electricity. It is simply not possible in the 21st century. Our policy is that through dialogue, through discussions we try to help the Serbs living in this region to live better and that our policy certainly helps them. The Government of the Republic of Serbia and the President of the Republic of Serbia will continue to take care of the Serbs regardless of where they live, Minister Vulin said.

The very act of consecration and enthronement of the newly elected bishop of Dalmatia Nicodim lasts for two days. Namely, Patriarch Irinej, yesterday afternoon, performed the service of consecration in the Holy Archangel Monastery Krka, and today, in the centre of the diocese in Šibenik, the Holy Liturgy was held with the act of episcopal chirotony and introducing the Bishop into the throne of the bishops of Dalmatia.

Nikodim was elected Bishop of Dalmatia in May, at the session of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Former father superior of the Krka Monastery Nikodim Kosović will replace at the head of the Dalmatian Diocese, Fotije Sladojević, who was appointed as the Bishop of Zvornik and Tuzla.

Nikodim Kosović was born in 1981 in Zadar. He graduated from the St. Arsenije Sremac Seminaryin Sremski Karlovci in 2000, and then he graduated from the Faculty of Theology at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki in 2009. He obtained his MA in the Pontifical Institute for the Eastern Churches in 2011 and since then, he has been a PhD candidate in Canon law at the Gregorian University in Rome.