TWO TREES AND TWO WAYS OF LIFE Part 1 of 4 On the Feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-giving Cross Visoki Dečani Monastery, 14/27 September 2026 Today the Church lifts up before us the Precious and Life-giving Cross of our Lord, the Tree upon which Christ was crucified and which, once an instrument of shameful death, became the sign of victory and the source of life. To understand more deeply why the Church calls the Cross the Life-giving Tree, however, we must return to the very beginning of the biblical story, to Paradise, where Holy Scripture speaks of two mysterious trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. These two trees are not merely a detail in the Old Testament account of the first man. In them we may also discern two possibilities open to human freedom, two ways of relating to God, to creation and to ourselves. The entire drama of human history, from Paradise through Golgotha to the Heavenly Jerusalem, may also be seen as humanity’s passage between these two ways of being. In Paradise, God had given man everything. Man had created neither himself nor the world nor the life he had received. Everything had been given to him as a gift and a blessing, and he was called to live in communion with God, to receive creation with thanksgiving and, through it, to ascend to the Creator. The Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise was a sign that man does not possess life within himself as a self-sufficient or self-existent being. Rather, he receives life and lives in communion with God, the only source of life. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, on the other hand, was bound up with the mystery of human freedom and obedience. The tree itself was not evil, just as knowledge is not evil. The Holy Fathers emphasise that the problem lay not in the nature of the tree, but in the transgression of God’s commandment and in man’s attempt to seize, apart from God, what was meant to be given to him in communion with God. This is precisely where the tragedy of the Fall begins. The serpent urges man to take the fruit, promising: “Ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). The temptation, then, was not to desire something foreign to man’s true calling. Man was indeed created for deification, for communion with God and participation in His life. Yet the path the serpent offers is deification without God, fullness without communion, a life that is not received as a gift but seized as a possession. In the hand reaching out to take the forbidden fruit, we can recognise the entire drama of fallen humanity. Ever since, man has continually sought to secure his life by grasping and possessing. He accumulates, safeguards, controls and conquers, binding his existence ever more closely to what he owns, to his standing, power and knowledge, and to the image he has fashioned of himself. Instead of receiving the world as a gift, he turns it into his private possession. Instead of seeing the other as a unique person and an icon of God, he begins to regard him as a means to an end, a rival or a threat. Instead of drawing his life from God, he tries to become his own source of life, to make himself a god. The Tree of Life is thus associated with wisdom and the intellect that directs us towards the eternal, while the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil symbolises a life governed by the senses, in which reality is reduced to pleasure and pain. When we take the senses alone as our measure, good becomes whatever gives us pleasure, and evil whatever causes us pain. When, however, we live by spiritual discernment, we learn to distinguish the passing from the eternal and, through creation, to ascend to its Creator.👉 #OrthodoxChristianity #ExaltationOfTheCross #TreeOfLife #DecaniMonastery #SerbianOrthodoxChurch #Kosovo

TWO TREES AND TWO WAYS OF LIFE Part 3 of 4 Here, too, the profound Eucharistic dimension of the Cross is revealed. Just as the Tree of Life in Paradise was bound up with the life that man receives from God, so from the new Tree of Life Christ Himself is given to us. He who offers Himself upon the Cross for the life of the world is the same Lord who says to us in the Eucharist: “Take, eat; this is my body” (Matthew 26:26). The fruit of the Tree of Life is Christ Himself. To receive Him is not to acquire some magical pledge of immortality, but to enter into communion with Him and participate in His life. We cannot, therefore, truly approach the Eucharist while obstinately continuing to live according to the logic of the old Adam, in grasping, self-love, selfishness, hatred and fear. As we partake of Christ, we are called gradually to make His way of being our own, to receive life as a gift and transform it into thanksgiving, love and offering. This is the Eucharistic way of life. Then we also begin to understand what it means to bear our own cross. The cross is not simply every misfortune that befalls us, nor is Christianity a religion that glorifies suffering. God does not desire pain for its own sake. Our cross begins when, in the concrete circumstances of our lives, we refuse to live according to the logic of the old Adam and choose Christ’s way of being. When we are wounded but do not allow our wounds to lead us into hatred; when we could take revenge but choose forgiveness; when we could take for ourselves but choose to give; when, instead of asking what belongs to us, we begin to ask what we can offer and share with our neighbour: then the Cross ceases to be merely a sign before which we bow and becomes our way of life. This is the kenotic path of Christian existence, the way of self-emptying, not as the annihilation of the person, but as liberation from false self-sufficiency. For the false self lives by fear, possessiveness and the constant need to secure itself. The true person (hypostasis) lives in communion. A person does not lose himself in self-giving; rather, he finds his fullness precisely in giving himself. This is why the Lord says: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it” (Matthew 16:25). What the “old man” tries to preserve by closing in upon himself he ultimately loses, while what a person offers in Christ comes to share in a life that death can no longer destroy. Holy Scripture ends, in a wondrous way, where it began. At the beginning, in the Book of Genesis, we see the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise, to which man no longer has access after the Fall. At the end, in the Revelation of St John, the Tree of Life stands once more in the midst of the city of God, beside the river of the water of life. It bears fruit continually, and its leaves are “for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2). Thus the entire biblical journey stretches from Paradise, through Golgotha, to the Heavenly Jerusalem. At the centre of that journey stands the Cross of Christ, the true Tree of Life. This is why the Church lifts up the Precious Cross before our eyes today. Not merely so that we may recall the historical finding and exaltation of the Precious Wood of the Cross, but so that we may see afresh which way of life we are choosing. For even today, two possibilities lie before us. We may live by constantly grasping, securing ourselves and measuring everything by our own advantage. Or we may receive life as a gift, give thanks for it and transform it into love and offering. The first path appears to be the way of self-preservation, yet in the end it leaves us empty and afraid. The second appears to be loss and the Cross, yet it bears within itself the Resurrection as new life.👉 #OrthodoxChristianity #ExaltationOfTheCross #Resurrection #VisokiDecani

Police officers in brutal mistreatment of a Kosovo Serb citizen case returned to duty with no information on investigation results (From media sources) On 21 September 2026, Kosovo Police confirmed that the two officers suspended over the alleged severe mistreatment of Nenad Rašković had returned to duty in the North Mitrovica region because their suspension had expired. Their reinstatement followed approximately one month of suspension. KoSSev, Kosovo-Online and other media report and police confirmation⁠ Neither the Police Inspectorate nor the Basic Prosecution in Mitrovica has publicly disclosed what the investigation established, whether criminal proceedings remain active, or what safeguards accompanied the officers’ return. EULEX stated only that it continues to monitor the case and referred questions about reinstatement to Kosovo Police. EULEX response⁠ This development reverses the principal precautionary accountability measure reported on 20 August. It does not legally exonerate the officers or establish that the investigation has ended, but their return before any publicly explained conclusion weakens confidence in the effectiveness and transparency of police accountability. It is directly relevant to assessments of greater Kosovo Police involvement around sensitive Serbian Orthodox sites, including Visoki Dečani. The reinstatement of Kosovo police officers suspected of brutal mistreatment of a Kosovo Serb citizen, additionally undermines in Serbian community confidence in professionalism and impartial role of Kosovo police. The officers’ present assignments, whether they may operate in Dren or contact Rašković and witnesses, and whether no-contact, reassignment or evidence-protection measures exist have not been disclosed. No prosecutorial charge, dismissal of the case or final Inspectorate finding has been announced.

Kosovo Online: Serb List seeks explanation over officers’ return to duty: No question in Raskovic case must remain unanswered kosovo-online.com/en/news/po…