THE TRAP When "Come Inside" Means "Get Arrested": Ninth Sunday at St. Sava Cathedral

December 29, 2025

The police arrived before eight o'clock in the morning.

Four squad cars this time—a lighter presence than usual, though "lighter" is a relative term when police show up two hours before liturgy begins.

They weren't responding to an emergency. They weren't answering a call.

They were waiting.

THE INVITATION

By nine o'clock, the rain had already soaked through coats and settled into bones. Forty degrees Fahrenheit feels colder when you're standing still, when there's nowhere to go but the sidewalk outside the church your family built.

Eighty-five to ninety adults huddled together. Twenty children darted between them, too young to understand why they couldn't go inside, old enough to know something was wrong.

This was the ninth Sunday since the purge began. The day after five men threw sacred items in a dumpster—icons, crosses, prayer ropes—right next to a wheelchair nobody thought to donate.

Then the church doors opened.

Dragan Vuković, the new priest installed by Bishop Irinej, stepped outside. Rain beaded on his cassock as he looked at the crowd gathered in front of the church.

He smiled.

"Come inside," he said. "Everyone is welcome for liturgy."

The same words he'd said last Sunday. And the Sunday before that.

Nobody moved.

Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was the four police cars parked conspicuously nearby. Maybe it was the memory of December 21st, when six squad cars arrived, and mothers received trespass notices.

Whatever the reason, the crowd stayed put.

Priest Vuković waited a moment longer, then turned and went back inside.

Fifteen minutes later, we learned why nobody should have gone in.

THE MEGAPHONE

The voice came through a police megaphone, loud enough to carry across the church property and into the street:

"Leave the church property immediately. If you do not leave, you will all be arrested."

People looked at each other, confused.

The police repeated the warning. Same words. Same threat.

Then they added something else, something that would be captured on video and impossible to deny later:

"You have to leave. The Bishop doesn't want you here."

Stefan Nikolić—a man loyal to Bishop Irinej, though not clergy, not police, not anyone with official authority—had been talking with the officers for about fifteen minutes before the megaphone announcement. We don't know what he told them. We only know what happened next.

The crowd moved across the street.

THE STACK

As people crossed to the other side, three members of our group approached the church entrance.

Stefan Nikolić was waiting for them.

He held a stack of papers. A big stack. About one hundred sheets, all identical, all pre-printed.

Trespass notices.

He tried to hand one to D.V., a woman who'd been coming to this church regularly, who didn't miss one week standing outside.

She didn't take it.

"Who are you?" she asked him. "Are you a lawyer? Are you police?"

Stefan Nikolić said nothing. Just held out the paper, hand extended, waiting for her to take it.

She turned and walked away.

The trap was becoming clear.

THE TACTIC

Think about the sequence of events:

8:00 AM: Four police cars arrive and wait.

9:00 AM: The priest comes outside and invites everyone into the church.

9:15 AM: Police threaten mass arrest through a megaphone.

Same time: A man with one hundred pre-printed trespass notices stands ready at the entrance.

This was planned.

Invite them inside. Gather them all in one enclosed space. Then arrest everyone at once.

It's efficient. It's organized. It's the kind of tactic that requires coordination between multiple parties—clergy, police, and whoever printed those one hundred notices in advance.

It's also the same method the Ustaše used against Serbs during World War II: lure people into a confined space, then eliminate them.

The difference is scale and intent. This time, the goal was mass arrest, not mass murder. But the method—the invitation that's actually a trap—is identical.

Draw them in with something they trust. Then close the door.

Except this time, nobody went in.

THE "FREE" ITEMS

Across the street, someone mentioned a pile of items just inside the doorway. Books. Calendars. Church materials.

A hand-written sign: "FREE."

S.P., an older woman who'd been a member of this parish for decades, looked at the picture of the pile. She recognized some of those books. She'd donated them herself. Paid for them out of her own pocket and given them to the church library.

"Can anyone help me get the stuff I paid for myself?" she asked.

A few people crossed back over and helped her carry items from the pile marked "free."

That's when David Lytkovski started filming.

He stood near the entrance, phone out, recording the elderly woman and her helpers as they carried books, calendars, and some other items away from the pile.

His wife, Zora Lytkovski, walked over to the police officers and said they were stealing.

Stealing items marked "free."

Let that sink in for a moment.

This is the same David Lytkovski who resigned from the Parish Board in April 2025, citing health concerns so serious he couldn't attend meetings. The same David who was photographed just yesterday—December 27th—doing physical labor, hauling boxes to a dumpster behind the church. The same David who stood next to a wheelchair he didn't think to donate while throwing sacred items—icons, crosses, prayer ropes—into the trash.

Now he was filming an elderly woman taking books marked "free" and calling it theft.

The cruelty is the point.

THE PROPHECY

While police threatened arrest and David filmed "theft," two people stood in the rain and spoke to the crowd.

Smilja Radivoj and her husband, Kostika.

Smilja read in Serbian. Kostika read in English.

They were reading a letter written by Vojvoda Momčilo Đujić in October 1998. Twenty-seven years ago. Before most of the children standing in the rain were born.

The letter is titled: "These Are the Days of Battle for the Survival of the Church and the People."

Here is what Vojvoda Đujić wrote:

"The Church properties are managed by the people who acquired them. Our Church cannot do anything without the decision of the Church-People Assembly."

"These are the days of the battle for the survival of the Church and the people."

"This, I wrote in short, but this is my creed with which I live and with which I will lay in the grave."

—Vojvoda Momčilo R. Đujić, October 1998

Twenty-seven years later, the crowd stood in forty-degree rain while police announced through a megaphone: "The Bishop doesn't want you here."

Vojvoda Đujić had warned about bishops who trample on the people instead of serving them. Bishops who live in luxury instead of walking humbly among the faithful. A Church where property disputes matter more than the people who built those properties.

He saw it coming in 1998.

We're living it in 2025.

THE BUILDERS' CHILDREN

There's a particular cruelty in who was reading that letter.

Smilja Radivoj is the sister of Pavle (Pajo) and Tode—two men who came to America after World War II and helped build St. Sava Cathedral with their own hands. Their labor. Their donations. Their lives poured into raising walls and installing windows and making a place where Serbian Orthodox faithful could worship in Cleveland, Ohio.

Now their niece—Jennifer, Smilja and Kostika's daughter—cannot enter the church her uncles built.

The Bishop doesn't want her there.

So Smilja stood in the rain, reading words written by a man who understood what it means when Church leaders forget who they're supposed to serve.

Her brothers built this building.

Her daughter is locked out of it.

And a priest she doesn't recognize invites her inside, knowing police will threaten arrest fifteen minutes later.

This is what "responsible management" looks like under Bishop Irinej's trusteeship.

THE PATTERN

By now, the pattern is clear.

Police arrive early. The priest extends an invitation. A megaphone threatens arrest. A loyalist holds pre-printed trespass notices. Someone films elderly women taking "free" items and calls it theft.

And one hundred twenty families stand in the rain, listening to a twenty-six-year-old warning that predicted exactly this moment.

This isn't church governance.

This is suppression dressed up as stewardship.

Invite them in. Trap them. Arrest them. Film them taking "free" items. Tell them through a police megaphone that the Bishop doesn't want them. Do all of this while the children and grandchildren of the men who built this church stand outside in the rain.

TO THE HOLY SYNOD

When Bishop Irinej submits his report about how he's "managing" St. Sava Cathedral, we hope you'll remember this Sunday.

Remember that police arrived before eight o'clock in the morning and waited.

Remember that the priest invited people inside just fifteen minutes before police threatened mass arrest.

Remember Stefan Nikolić standing with one hundred pre-printed trespass notices, ready to distribute them.

Remember David Lytkovski filming an elderly woman taking books marked "free" and calling it theft—one day after he threw sacred items in a dumpster next to a wheelchair he didn't donate.

Remember the crowd standing in forty-degree rain while police announced: "The Bishop doesn't want you here."

And remember Smilja Radivoj reading Vojvoda Đujić's letter—the same Smilja whose brothers built this church, whose daughter cannot enter it, whose family is now told through police loudspeakers that they are not welcome in the building their own hands constructed.

This is the ninth Sunday since the purge began.

One hundred twenty families in the rain.

Twenty children watching their Church locked against them.

And the grandchildren of the builders cannot enter the building their grandfathers built.

THREE QUESTIONS

The question is not: "Who owns the church property?"

The question is: "What kind of bishop tells police to announce through a megaphone that the bishop doesn't want the faithful there?"

The question is: "What kind of bishop invites people inside, then threatens them with mass arrest fifteen minutes later?"

The question is: "What kind of bishop bars the children of the builders from entering the building their family built?"

Vojvoda Momčilo Đujić answered these questions twenty-six years ago.

And we are still outside, remembering Vojvoda Đujić's words:

"One God, one Saint Sava, one unified and undivided, holy, suffering, catholic and apostolic Serbian Orthodox Church and one proud and invincible Serbian Nation."

That's what we're fighting for.

That's why we stand in the rain.

That's why the grandchildren of the builders will not accept being locked out of the building their grandfathers built.

The police can threaten arrest. The priest can extend false invitations. The Bishop can say he doesn't want us there.

But Vojvoda Đujić's words remain true:

"This is my creed with which I live and with which I will lay in the grave."

We're still here.

Still standing.

Still fighting for the Church our families built.

NEDOSTOJAN.