Meeting of Zenka- Gjonlleshaj: Citizenship of Montenegrin society is the result of the awareness of the universal value of freedom

Minister for Human and Minority Rights Mehmed Zenka discussed earlier today the relations between religious communities and the state with Monsignor Rrok Gjonlleshaj in the Archdiocese of Bar, visited with his associates Zana Filipović, General Director for Relations with Religious Communities and Katarina Pecovic, adviser. On that occasion, Minister reiterated the commitment of the Montenegrin Government to editing and improving relations between the state and religious communities. Zenka emphasized that his visit was organized in order to get acquainted with the activities of the Archdiocese of Bar, technical details and strengthening the cooperation with the Archdiocese. 

According to him, religious communities in Montenegro accumulate significant social potential and in virtue of religious learning, they are universal social values ​​or principles on which the rule of law is based.

For these reasons, this social potential is an important factor of stability and represents mutual respect, tolerance, respect for human rights and freedoms, multiculturalism and multiconfessionalism, democracy shortly,  the civic matrix of our society, Minister said.

Archbishop Monsignor Rrok Gjonlleshaj thanked the Minister sincerely for his attention and understanding of the importance of open dialogue in co-operation. He stressed that the Archdiocese of Bar the Catholic Church in Montenegro, does not have any open issues within its work with other religious organizations and churches.

The speakers agreed that Montenegro was one of the crossroads of civilizations, meeting place for Orthodoxy, Catholicism,  Islam and Judaism. Societies fromt such areas are often, as a rule, burdened with multiple conflicts and hardly attain the value of a civil society, which is not the case in Montenegro.

It was commonly estimated that awareness of the universal value of freedom in the broadest sense, regardless of religion and nation, enabled Montenegrin society to build itself as a civic, thus valorising the richness of diversity that afflicts it.

Ministry for Human and Minority Rights