THE NUMBERS DON'T LIE:A STATISTICAL PORTRAIT OF HARASSMENTAT ST. SAVA SERBIAN ORTHODOX CATHEDRAL
- Special Correspodent
- Jul 14
- 9 min read
Parma, Ohio — November 2025 through July 2026
The Bishop-appointed Trusteeship of St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral has stated publicly that neither the church, its clergy, nor its board called police during the July 12, 2026 Petrovdan liturgy.
On July 12, the call to police was placed by one of our own parishioners — standing outside with his community, as he does every Sunday — because he witnessed a tow truck lift a car with a living person inside. That is the only call placed that day. And it was the right call.
The Trusteeship did not need to call police on July 12. They had already sent a tow truck.
But the July 12 call is not the story. The story is what the complete public record shows when you lay it all out.
THE COMPLETE RECORD: NOVEMBER 2025 — JULY 2026
Over the course of eight months, Parma Police were called to St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral at 6306 Broadview Road on at least 29 separate occasions.
AT LEAST 29 DOCUMENTED CALLS TO POLICE
AT LEAST 81 POLICE CAR DISPATCHES
AT LEAST 22 UNIQUE OFFICERS RESPONDING (22 DIFFERENT INDIVIDUAL OFFICERS, EACH RESPONDING ON ONE OR MORE OCCASIONS)
ZERO CONFIRMED INCIDENTS OF VIOLENCE OR WEAPONS
Read those numbers again. At least 81 police car dispatches. At least 22 unique officers — meaning 22 different individual officers, each responding on one or more occasions. Eight months. Directed at a community that police described, every single time, as peaceful, unarmed, and accommodating to law enforcement.
WHO WAS CALLING — AND WHY
Public records identify multiple callers by first name across these incidents. The same individuals called repeatedly — sometimes multiple times within days of each other, sometimes on the same day.
The most documented single caller is Katerina Derekh, Secretary of the Bishop-appointed Trusteeship — confirmed to have called Parma Police at least 7 times over the course of eight months.
Seven times. The Secretary of a church board called police — on her own parishioners — at least seven confirmed times. Seven times she picked up the phone. Seven times she directed the resources of the Parma Police Department against the people this church exists to serve.
Other Trusteeship members and associates called as well — multiple times each, across multiple incidents.
What were they calling about?
Parking. People gathering peacefully. Protesters on church steps. Vehicles in a parking lot. Parishioners trying to enter their own church.
What did police find — every single time?
Peaceful. No weapons. No violence. Polite and accommodating.
"The protesters were polite and accommodating to police." — Parma Police, December 7, 2025
"Around 1130 hours all of the protestors left the property without incident." — Parma Police, December 28, 2025
DECEMBER 5, 2025 — THE INVASION AND THE CONFESSION
On December 5, 2025, the Trusteeship used police to terrorize Fr. Dragoslav and his family. They then tried to cover it up by claiming the Bishop knew nothing about it.
This is not a dispute over church governance. This is a documented case of the Bishop-appointed board using law enforcement to invade a priest’s home and intimidate his family while he was too sick to defend himself.
While Fr. Dragoslav Kosić lay bedridden — too ill to even stand — intruders broke into his home through the basement. Locks were changed. Children cried in terror. Protinica collapsed under the stress and was hospitalized. Police arrived — not to protect the family, but to enforce the invasion.
While the locks were being changed, Katerina Derekh — Secretary of the Bishop-appointed Trusteeship — was captured on camera. When questioned about the Trusteeship’s authority to enter Fr. Dragoslav’s home, she did not hesitate:
“The diocese made the decision about the priest.”
Not the board. Not the “trusteeship.” The diocese. The Bishop.
The video evidence does not stop with that confession. Multiple clips from December 5th show Katerina Derekh offering her phone to police so they could speak directly to Bishop Irinej — real-time coordination, with the Bishop reachable by phone while the invasion was in progress.
The police did not take the phone. Instead, according to the officer on the scene, they said they had “a paper” and would act “according to that paper.” No court order authorized this eviction. So who issued that paper, and on whose authority?
Three days later, the board issued an official statement claiming Bishop Irinej was “falsely accused” of calling the police and ordering the eviction. But on December 5th — while it was happening — his own Secretary said, on camera: “The diocese made the decision.”
Both cannot be true.
Either the Bishop ordered it — making him personally responsible for terrorizing a sick priest’s family and hospitalizing Protinica — or the board is lying in its official statement, deliberately covering up who authorized an illegal home invasion.
This was not the first home invasion under Bishop Irinej’s watch. In November 2024, at St. Elijah Church in Aliquippa, Fr. Njegoš Perković’s residence was invaded and his pregnant wife was terrorized. The tactic escalates. The signature remains the same.
A sick priest, too weak to stand. Children crying. A wife hospitalized. And police, sent not to protect a family but to remove it from its own home — on the word of a Secretary who, on camera, said the decision came from the diocese, while offering her phone so the Bishop himself could confirm it.
MARCH 15, 2026 — THE BISHOP'S VISIT
On March 15, 2026, Bishop Irinej visited St. Sava Cathedral unannounced. Dragan Obrenic, President of the Bishop-appointed Trusteeship, called police — CAD Number 260014893. Eight police units were dispatched.
Eight police cars. To escort Bishop Irinej Dobrijević into his own church through the main entrance.
Let that sink in.
Is this how a bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church enters his cathedral? Escorted by eight police cars? Through a crowd of his own faithful — standing peacefully outside, holding Serbian and American flags, asking only to worship in the church they built?
Is this the image the Serbian Orthodox Church wishes to present in America? A bishop who requires a police escort to enter his own church because he cannot face his own people?
That same day, Zora Lytkowski filed a criminal complaint against Nina for trespass. Nina Markovic is the elected President of the Parish Board — elected by the congregation before the Bishop dissolved it. She was subsequently cited for criminal trespass for walking onto the grounds of her own church.
The Bishop entered through the main entrance — escorted by police. He served Liturgy. He left without a single word to the people standing outside.
Eight police cars for a peaceful Sunday morning. A criminal citation for the elected Parish Board President.
This is what Bishop Irinej Dobrijević's visit looks like at St. Sava Cathedral in 2026.
VIDOVDAN — THE BISHOP RETURNS. DIFFERENTLY.
On June 28, 2026 — Vidovdan, the holiest day in the Serbian national calendar — Bishop Irinej returned to St. Sava Cathedral.
No police were called. No police were present.
Why no police on Vidovdan? Because police presence creates a record. A record that goes to Belgrade.
However, the record was created anyway.
A record that shows Bishop Irinej Dobrijević arriving unannounced at his own cathedral on Vidovdan — the holiest day in the Serbian national calendar — and entering through a side door. While over 70 of his faithful stood outside at the front.
He served Liturgy before approximately 20 people in a cathedral built for hundreds.
Then he left — through the lower parking lot, through the side street next to the newly installed priest's residence, through the neighborhood — to avoid the community standing at the front doors.
That same afternoon, he appeared publicly at the Greek Cultural Garden in Cleveland alongside Archbishop Elpidophoros of America. The Diocese published the report. The photos are on their website.
That is not exactly the picture you want to send to Belgrade.
Without police, he hoped there would be no record. But God sees everything. And so did we.
If everything were normal — why the side door? If everything were normal — why 20 people in a cathedral built for hundreds? If everything were normal — why slip out through the neighborhood?
Normal does not hide. Normal does not run.
THE FALSE ACCUSATIONS AGAINST THE JANITORS
Katerina Derekh filed police reports accusing former church janitors Zeljka and Sasa Veselinovic of removing security cameras in November 2025, and of intentionally shutting off the building's heat valve in January 2026, causing pipes to freeze and burst.
Police investigated both allegations. Police found no evidence against either Zeljka or Sasa Veselinovic in either case.
This is not surprising. The church locks had been changed on December 5, 2025. Zeljka Veselinovic had surrendered her keys that same day — in writing, signed in front of the parish President. She had no keys and no access to the building when the heat valve was allegedly shut off in January 2026.
As for the security camera footage Katerina promised would prove her accusations — she told police she would provide it. She never did.
Police found no evidence. The case went nowhere. The accusations were made anyway.
ONE OF THE MOST DISTURBING CALL OF ALL
But of all the calls in this eight-month record, the most disturbing was not placed by a Trusteeship member.
On July 6, 2026 — six days before Petrovdan — the current priest of St. Sava Cathedral called Parma Police to conduct a welfare check on Fr. Dragoslav.
In the official police record, the caller described Fr. Dragoslav as an "X priest" and stated that "the church is in the process of evicting him." Both descriptions were inaccurate.
The eviction case was dismissed by the Cleveland Municipal Court for lack of jurisdiction. A new hearing is scheduled for July 20, 2026. No eviction is legally in effect.
This is the same priest who, on his very first appearance at St. Sava Cathedral on December 12, 2025, stood on the church steps and accused parishioners of stealing the prosphora and wine — people he had never met, a community he had never served, a church he had never set foot in before that day.
The wine was untouched. Inside the church. Where he was standing.
The same man who told the Deanery Dean that Fr. Dragoslav's salary had been paid — when it had not. Eight months without pay.
The same man who on December 29 invited parishioners inside — "everyone is welcome" — and fifteen minutes later threatened them all with arrest.
That man called police to conduct a welfare check on Fr. Dragoslav. With inaccurate information. One week before the next court hearing. On his brother in Christ.
A welfare check gives police the authority to enter a home without a warrant.
We leave the rest to the reader.
We want to be direct: this is the man who has been installed as our priest. This is the man we are expected to approach for confession. This is the man from whose hands we are expected to receive Holy Communion.
A man who called us thieves before he learned our names.
A man who set a trap for us on the holiest morning of the week.
A man who filed a welfare check on Fr. Dragoslav — his brother in Christ — with inaccurate information.
We do not accept him. We will never accept him. Not because of politics. Not because of canonical disputes. But because a priest who accuses his flock of theft before he has ever looked them in the eye is not a shepherd. He is a stranger wearing vestments.
And we say this plainly, so that no one is under any illusion: leaving this man in Cleveland will not solve anything. It will deepen a wound that is already very deep.
PETROVDAN — JULY 12, 2026
On the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, a tow truck arrived at the St. Sava Cathedral parking lot and targeted the vehicle of Dorothy Winovich — an 80-year-old lifelong parishioner with a walker. Her car was not first in line. It was chosen specifically.
When S.M. entered the car to move it, the tow truck operator lifted it anyway — with a man inside. People shouted: "There is a man inside!" The operator heard. The operator saw. The operator continued.
One of our parishioners — standing outside with the community — called police. Not to report protesters. Not to harass anyone. He called because he witnessed a man lifted into the air in his own vehicle. That call was the right call. That call was the only call made that day in defense of human life.
Seven police cars arrived. The tow truck was already gone. The man was already on the ground.
TWO HUNDRED LETTERS
At a recent meeting he himself requested, Bishop Irinej admitted to Svetlana that his office sent at least 200 cease-and-desist letters to every parishioner in Parma in November 2025. This is not an isolated case or speculation — at least 15 parishioners, including this author, confirm receiving the same letter.
WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS
At least 29 calls. At least 81 police car dispatches. At least 22 unique officers. Eight months.
The Secretary of the Trusteeship alone called at least 7 confirmed times.
Dragan Obrenic, President of the Trusteeship, called police when the Bishop visited — summoning 8 police cars for a peaceful Sunday morning.
Zero confirmed incidents of violence. Zero weapons. Zero physical altercations.
Two arrests — both parishioners of the church they were accused of trespassing on.
False accusations against former employees — no evidence found, promised camera footage never provided.
One welfare check filed against Fr. Dragoslav — with inaccurate information, one week before a court hearing, by his own brother in Christ.
One man lifted into the air in his own vehicle. One 80-year-old lifelong parishioner whose car was specifically targeted.
One community — described in every single police record as peaceful, polite, unarmed, and accommodating.
This is not a dispute. This is not a misunderstanding. This is a documented, systematic, eight-month campaign to weaponize law enforcement against a congregation that has done nothing more than stand peacefully outside its own church.
All CAD records and incident reports referenced in this article are public records of the Parma Police Department, obtained through public records requests. CAD numbers are provided for independent verification.
The faithful of St. Sava Cathedral are still standing outside.
Thirty-eight Sundays and counting.
God sees everything.
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