In quick succession, the black-clad monk administered a holy trinity of beverages: water (father), espresso (son) and raki (holy ghost) accompanied by chocolate and poppy seed cookies. A kamilavka hat concealed abundant gray hair that matched his beard whose length reflected what were most likely decades of celibate life in one of Serbian Orthodoxy’s holiest sites, Visoki Dečani monastery, in western Kosovo. This was a hardcore holy man, and his appearance made me think of the eerie footage of Serb paramilitary forces being blessed by a priest before they went on to perpetrate in Srebrenica the worst atrocity of the Bosnian civil war.

Tags: Kosovo, Serbian Orthodox, Visoki Dečani