In several successions, “Pobjeda” will pass on parts of this document pointing out the unacceptable behavior of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Montenegro, which unquestionably devastates Montenegrin cultural heritage. Recognized long ago, there is a significant need to preserve and improve these values, and a number of recommendations, conventions, and guidelines have standardized the given administrative, technical, scientific and legal issues. Montenegro is a signatory of most of these documents. It also brings a set of laws that protects our cultural heritage and the cultural goods of this country, but the problem arises in their implementation. Inadequate use and presentation of cultural heritage and its cultural goods can cause irreparable harm to the values of the cultural identity of the state. In addition to all the other complex reasons that contributed to the present state of Montenegrin cultural heritage and heritage in general, there is a clear disrespect of laws regulating this area from certain entities that govern the cultural assets of this country.
Out of 270 sacral cultural goods of Montenegro, 166 buildings are devastated, or about 60 percent of sacral cultural assets are, to a greater or lesser extent, devastated. In this regard, one must consider the fact that devastation is represented in Orthodox, Catholic, and Islamic religious objects. With the Constitution of Montenegro, the cultural heritage is recognized as goods of the general interest, which everyone is obliged to preserve and the state to protect. The most significant part of the cultural heritage is material and immaterial cultural goods, which represent a kind of testimony of/from the past and the presence of man and human communities in a certain space and time, their activities, their persistence, their movements and their development. Establishing the protection of cultural goods, in the nature of things, changes the regular ownership regime and establishes certain obligations and restrictions, which would not exist if the cultural goods are not legally protected.
Text by Pobjeda, on June 25th, 2018, read more at CdM
