Kosovo Gov’t Orders Implementation of Court Ruling Returning 24 Hectares of Land to Serbian Medieval Visoki Decani Monastery

Visoki Decani monastery (BETAPHOTO/ARMENIJA ZAJMI BESEVIC)

At its session on March 13, the Kosovo Government ordered that land be returned to the Serbian Orthodox medieval Visoki Decani Monastery in accordance with the relevant ruling of the Kosovo Constitutional Court.

According to reporting by koha.net, the Pristina government decided that relevant institutions should ensure implementation of the Kosovo Constitutional Court’s ruling from May 2016, confirming that 24 hectares of land belonged to the 14th-century monastery. In their latest statements, Kosovo officials have urged that the court decision be implemented which is said to be the main obstacle to Kosovo’s membership in the Council of Europe.

The Quint countries’ ambassadors have on several occasion demanded that the court ruling be implemented and that the land be legally registered as property of the Decani monastery. The saga about the monastery’s land began after World War II, when the state seized 700 hectares of land from the medieval monastery.

In 1997, Serbia returned to the monastery only 24 hectares surrounding the complex, but the municipality of Decani does not recognize that this piece of land belongs to the monastery. The ruling confirming the Decani monastery’s ownership of the land was made in 2012, and upheld by Kosovo Constitutional Court on May 20, 2016. However, the decision has not been implemented until today.