I heard of him for the first time in London, a few months after the [end of the] war in Kosovo. I met colleague Tihomir Loza, who told me about an unbelievable event he had witnessed the previous evening at the local Serbian Orthodox Church. The announced visit of a Serb delegation from Kosovo that would speak about the war and current situation in the former southern province of Serbia had stirred quite a lot of interest among journalist and Serbs in London. Several hundreds of London Serbs from different generations - from those who escaped to United Kingdom after the [Communist] partisan victory in WWII, their children and grandchildren who can barely speak Serbian, to refugees from the most recent wars - attentively listened to the guests. They talked about the suffering of Serbs in Kosovo, destruction of monasteries, Serbian Orthodox churches and cemeteries, cultural and historical monuments, Serb property... Then the young monk from the Decani monastery addressed the gathering with words "brothers and sisters". He continued with the question: "And what could we expect?" He talked about the number of mosques, Muslim cultural and historical monuments, cemeteries destroyed by the Serbian Army and Police, and of suffering of Albanians and destruction of their property. The audience was dumbfounded after these words. A middle-aged woman reacted first, shouting that that was not true and that Serbs had never, ever in their history inflicted evil or injustice to anyone. Her words were greeted by raucous laughter, which was again followed by total silence... The rest of evening was also interesting, but irrelevant for this story.
It is important that that time in London I heard for the first time about father Sava from Decani. Since then I have been reading everything I could find about him, as reported by the major global media outlets. Naturally, I could not miss the opportunity to use my first post-war visit to Kosovo for a visit to Decani, and an attempt to meet father Sava. The town of Decani is located about fifteen minutes from Pec. On the way to the biggest and best preserved mediaeval Serb monastery (the monastery is included on UNESCO's list of world heritage sites) we passed restaurant "Bill Clinton" and the center of the town, after which we found the sign that directs visitors towards Decani monastery. About hundred meters further up the road, we reached the first KFOR check point with a tank and Italian soldiers. On the way to the monastery there are two more check points. All approaches to the monastery, apart from the main road with KFOR fortifications, are blocked off by barbed wire. Local NATO headquarters for Kosovo conclusion that after the Albanian violence in 2004 the monastery requires that level of protection is a deserved slap in the face of Albanian leaders, although I did not notice that they were terribly concerned.
Well, we entered the monastery and a monk, one of 25 who live in the monastery, served us coffee, brandy and cookies, while we waited for father Sava. He arrived soon and we talked about key problems facing Kosovo and Albanian-Serb relations for about 30 minutes; I cannot get over the fact that I would feel like a dog if I ignored father Sava's request to keep our conversation off the record: the head of the monastery was absent and without his permission father Sava cannot talk for the media. We agreed to try to obtain permission for a proper interview some time in the future. He did notice the effect his words had on me so that upon departure he said "I am from Trebinje, my mother is a Croat and my best friends were Muslims".
If behavior, views and preaching of a huge majority of Catholic and Orthodox priests, imams and rabbis, at least in the former Yugoslavia, over the last two decades, were supposed to testify the existence of God, then God would not fare that well. Fortunately for God some of his servants are like father Sava, whose words remind me of Franciscan brother Ivo Markovic; they reawaken our trust in people and also significantly raise God's rating. I have considered myself fortunate for a while for knowing brother Ivo, and I return from Kosovo even more fortunate after having met father Sava.