St. Elijah's Day in Kosovo: Kos Draws 150 Faithful
The St. Elijah gathering in Kos, near Istok, has been revived for a third summer running, and the church in Cernica near Gnjilane turned 100. St. Elijah's Day was marked in seven Kosovo locations.
St. Elijah’s Day was marked in Kosovo on August 2 in seven locations, from Gnjilane to Kacanik, and two of the observances stood out from the usual round of liturgies. In Cernica, near Gnjilane, the Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah turned 100 years old, and in the resettled village of Kos, near Istok, about 150 faithful gathered for a feast day that had been suspended since 1999.
The hierarchical liturgy in Cernica was led by Metropolitan Teodosije of Raska and Prizren, concelebrated by clergy of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren. In Kos, the liturgy was served by parish priest Dalibor Kojic of Osojane and deacon Milos Popovic of Novi Pazar, held in the Church of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, since St. Elijah’s Day is the village’s communal feast rather than the church’s own patron feast. A shared meal in the churchyard followed the service.
The holiday was observed in the following places:
- Cernica, near Gnjilane, where the central celebration was held
- Kos, near Istok
- Velika Hoca, where St. Elijah’s Day is the church’s patron feast
- Vrbestica
- Lesak
- Kacanik
- Smac
Kacanik and Smac no longer have any Serb residents. The liturgy was still served there this year and the feast bread was broken, the only form in which the Orthodox calendar is still observed in those places.
The Kos Gathering Stopped in 1999, Now Back for a Third Summer
The St. Elijah gathering in Kos was held every year until 1999, when it was interrupted, and it was revived after some residents returned to the village. The initiative came from Danijela Popovic, a native of the village, who says turnout has grown year after year.
“It was my idea, and my relatives, friends and neighbors backed it. This is already the third year running that we can’t all fit inside the church, and I hope it will be even better next year,” Popovic said.
Her observation that not everyone can fit inside the church is a measure that is easier to check than any estimate of how many people have returned. It comes down to how full one village church is, and that has now held true for three years running.
150 People Against a Once 3,000
Branko Obradovic, a displaced person originally from Kos, recalled that this gathering was once among the largest in Kosovo.
“Among Orthodox Serbs, St. Elijah’s Day is still one of the biggest gatherings held in Kosovo. People used to come here from Orahovac, Kijevo, Radosina, Zubin Potok, all the way to Ljevosa near Pec. As many as 3,000 people used to gather here. Over the past two years the number of people has grown considerably, and that makes us happy. We gather here in large numbers on this day, just as we do for the church’s patron feast on December 4,” Obradovic told Radio Gorazdevac.
Placed side by side, the two figures give a ratio of twenty to one: today’s 150 worshippers are a twentieth of the once 3,000. The places Obradovic listed stretch from Orahovac in southern Metohija to Zubin Potok in northern Kosovo, covering nearly the entire territory, while today’s gathering draws mostly local residents and displaced people from Kos itself.
So the growth Popovic and Obradovic both describe needs to be read precisely. It is measured against the years when the gathering did not take place at all, not against the situation before 1999. That difference is the entire gap that official reports on returnees usually compress into a single sentence.
What the Parish Priest Told the Crowd
In his homily, Kojic spoke about the Holy Prophet Elijah, faith and perseverance, linking the preservation of faith to staying on ancestral land.
“We have been left a covenant to preserve, alongside our faith, the holy land of Kosovo and Metohija, to guard it as the apple of our eye, never to renounce it, never to lose our faith but to root ourselves in Christ himself, and to keep drawing from that everlasting spring with living water and living faith,” Kojic said.
The Church of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in Kos was for decades the spiritual center of that part of Metohija. Patriarch Pavle, during his time as Bishop of Raska and Prizren, served the liturgy there. With the church restored and a parish house built, the site once again serves as a gathering place for local residents and the displaced.
A Century for the Cernica Church
The Church of the Holy Prophet Elijah in Cernica was built in 1926, so this year’s St. Elijah’s Day there also marked its full century. The anniversary was the reason the Diocese of Raska and Prizren chose Cernica for its central celebration of the feast. Metropolitan Teodosije used his homily to urge worshippers to stay firm in their faith, and a cultural program followed the liturgy.
Cernica and Kos represent two different stories on the same day. Cernica marks continuity, a hundred years of worship on the same spot. Kos marks a break and an attempt to bridge it.
When Kos Gathers Again
The next date is already set, and Obradovic named it himself: December 4, the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, the church’s own patron feast. It is the second of two days each year when displaced residents of Kos return to the village in larger numbers. Whether turnout keeps growing will only be clear on St. Elijah’s Day in 2027, when a fourth data point will exist.
