On December 7th 2021, His Royal Highness Crown Prince Davit Bagration Muhranbatoni, Head of the Royal House of Georgia have officially visited The National Assembly of The Republic of Serbia, following the kind invitation of Mr Stefan Krkobabich, Deputy Speaker of The Serbian Parliament from the ranks of the ruling coalition in Serbia.
The members of the Royal entourage on this memorable occasion have been: Mr Aleksandar O. Djurdjev, Deputy in The Assembly of The Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and Rector of The Order of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of our Lord Jesus Christ for Serbia and Reverend Father Deacon Hadzi Nenad M. Jovanovich, Secretary of The Centre for Research of Orthodox Monarchism and Chaplain of the Georgian Royal Orders in Serbia.
On the other hand, HIs Royal Highness members of their Royal entourage have been welcomed by their much esteemed host, Mr Krkobabich, and his associates: Mr Hadzi Milorad Stoshich, Member of Parliament and Head of the PUPS –“Three P’s” Parliamentary Group; Mr Dragan M. Markovich, Member of Parliament and Mr Goran Milenkovich, Assistant Minister in The Ministry of Rural Welfare in The Government of Serbia.
The meeting that followed was held on the premises of The National Assembly Library, a historical and representative chamber within the House of the National Assembly of Serbia, and was of great importance, since it has treated a wide range of questions from the domain of reestablishing or starting completely new cultural, religious and economic relations between the two fraternal nations, which are bounded and tightly connected by common Orthodox Christian Faith and numerous similarities, which have influenced their long history and shaped their national identities.
After the meeting, the encounter was resumed at the Central Hall of the House of the National Assembly of Serbia where a ceremony of investiture was performed, during which His Highness has bestowed The Medal for Merit for The Royal House of Georgia upon Mr Krkobabich, for his proven and fruitful support, not just on this particular occasion, but on certain other occasions in the past, which was of immence importance for The Royal House of Georgia and the cause of the improving of cultural relations and better understanding and cooperation between the two nations.
After the investiture, His Highness and Mr Krkobabich have addressed the members of the media. On this occasion, His Highness gave the following address:
“On my own behalf I have the great pleasure to express my joy that we were given this unusual opportunity and honor to visit this historic building, the House of the National Assembly of Serbia.
This is the second time I have visited your beautiful country and city, which I truly loved since my youth, when our Family lived in exile and when I had the opportunity to meet and socialize with people from Serbia and Belgrade, who told me a lot about your country and your city. Their stories about the beauties of your country and the good nature of your people aroused in me a lively interest and curiosity, which found their confirmation when I was first given the opportunity and privilege to come here. Then I had the opportunity to be equally nicely received and hospitably welcomed, as is the case today. With joy, but also with sadness, I keep the memory of that visit from ten years ago, when we were received by the late His Holiness the Archbishop of Pech, Metropolitan of Belgrade-Karlovtsi and Serbian Patriarch K.K. Irinej of blessed memory, whom we decorated on that occasion with the highest Order of our Royal House. From that time until his blessed repose, we were in frequent contact with His Holiness, whose paternal words and spiritual teachings we will cherish for a long time to come.
I am honored that today, at this memorable place, I had the extraordinary honour of awarding the Deputy Speaker of The National Assembly of The Republic of Serbia, Mr. Stefan Krkobabich, with the Medal of Merit to The Royal House of Georgia, according to the proposals of the Rector and Chaplain of our Royal Orders in Serbia, Mr. Aleksandar O. Djurdjev and Deacon Hadzi Nenad M. Jovanovich.
Indeed, we gladly accepted their nomination of the esteemed Mr. Krkobabich, whom we consider truly worthy of this recognition of our House. In this way, we would like to express our sincere gratitude for his sincere and selfless support of the efforts of our Royal House, for deepening and renewing the historical, spiritual and cultural ties of our two peoples. We also want to express our deepest respect and recognition to Mr. Krkobabich for his outstanding achievements so far, but also to encourage the further development of cultural and other relations of our peoples, which have so much in common, but in which there is significant room for improvement and further development to mutual benefit.
Our peoples, have been united and inextricably linked for many centuries by a common Orthodox Faith, heritage and very similar historical experiences. Serbian-Georgian relations go back to the ancient past, ie. in the time of Saint Simeon the Myrrh-Gusher and Saint Sava. They have then branched out to this day, through the Balkan military liberation campaign of the famous member of our House, Prince General Peter Bagration Mukhrani in the XIX century and the military and diplomatic service of our cousin Prince Teymuraz Bagration Mukhrani, who was a Royal guard officer and a well known diplomat of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, as well as the husband of Katarina Rachich, granddaughter of the famous Nikola Pashich, President of the Serbian Royal Government.
We are convinced that all this, as well as much from the history of relations between Georgia and our Royal House with Serbia, which we have not mentioned here, provides a healthy and solid foundation for working to improve our existing and create new spiritual and cultural ties, that will connect us even more tightly.
We consider the esteemed Mr. Krkobabich to be a truly irreplaceable and very valuable collaborator and a worthy asset in this great work, and that is why we use this opportunity to congratulate him once again on the award with which he is today deservedly decorated with.”
In his reply to the Royal address, Mr Krkobabich has replied:
“Your Royal Highness Prince Davit Bagration Muhranbatoni,
Esteemed Rector of The Order of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of our Lord Jesus Christ in Serbia, Mr. Djurdjev,
Honourable Chaplain of the Georgian Royal Orders in Serbia, Deacon Hadzi Nenad M. Jovanovich,
Esteemed representatives of the media,
The great Georgian writer Ilia Chavchavadze said: “We have three divine treasures from our ancestors: homeland, language and religion.” This sentence contains the fundamental values cherished by the Serbian and the Georgian people, their States and their Churches, but also the values that deeply connect our two peoples who are distant only in a geographic sense of the word. Our homelands, Georgia and Serbia, are located in, historically speaking, the most turbulent areas of Europe and the world – the Caucasus and the Balkans. That is why the destinies of Serbs and Georgians are in fact one and the same destiny, the destiny of the struggle to preserve state independence and national identity in a complex geopolitical environment between the opposing interests of the great powers. Our languages and our scripts are centuries old and jealously guard their authenticity from drowning in an impersonal globalist cultural pattern. Our Churches, the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Orthodox Church, are one of the most important pillars of Orthodox Christianity, both in the past and now. The ties of our peoples, small in number but great in their history, courage, dignity, hospitality and much more, are not and cannot be weakened or broken by geographical distance.
Dear friends, I will not call you as guests, because you are in your second home, both in this solemn house and in Belgrade and Serbia, because Georgians were and remain “the Caucasian Serbs” in many ways, or vice versa, Serbs are in many ways “the Balkanian Georgians”.
Your Highness, I am glad that you are in the Serbian capital for the second time and that you have given me a great honour and privilege to be awarded the Medal of Merit to The Royal House of Georgia. The fact that during your previous visit to Belgrade in 2011 you decorated the late Serbian Patriarch Irinej is a pleasure for me, but it also obliges me to promote and encourage Serbian-Georgian ties, both as a public figure and as a person, and all those values that I said unite our peoples and our countries.
Your Highness, I want you to return to Tbilisi with a message of gratitude that I convey to you, your country and your compatriots, I am sure, not only in my own name, but also in the name of Serbia and the Serbian people. Since our diplomatic relations were established in 1995, Serbia has had a sincere friend and reliable partner in Georgia. All these years, Georgia has supported the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Serbia on the issue of Kosovo and Metohija, just as Serbia has done in the case of the indivisibility, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia, including Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia always votes in favor of the state of Serbia in international institutions when it comes to the attempt to enter the so-called Kosovo in the same, where we especially remember the voice of Georgia against the admission of the so-called Kosovo to UNESCO in 2015, knowing how important Orthodox shrines in that area are for the Serbian state and people. Therefore, I ask you to convey to the whole of Georgia expressions of deep gratitude and desire to establish diplomatic relations at the highest level as soon as possible through the opening of the Serbian Embassy in Tbilisi and the opening of the Georgian Embassy in Belgrade. This is important, because small but free and independent nations, like ours, must strengthen their political, economic, cultural and any other forms of cooperation, which, I am sure, in the case of our two countries, is more than feasible.
Dear friends, I thank you once again for your visit to Belgrade and Serbia, for the decoration you awarded me, and for your selfless and tireless promotion and encouragement of Georgian-Serbian friendship and cooperation.
Long live Georgia! Long live Serbia!”
The whole event was met with keen interest of the local and some foreign media:
Official web-site of The National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia: http://www.parlament.gov.rs/Stefan_Krkobabic_Awarded_Royal_House_of_Georgia_Medal_of_Merit.43705.537.html
Serbian National News Agency “Tanjg”: http://www.tanjug.rs/full-view.aspx?izb=702904
Leading Serbian News Media Agency “Beta”: https://beta.rs/politika/156046-stefan-krkobabic-odlikovan-medaljom-za-zasluge-kraljevskog-doma-gruzije-video
One of the most popular Serbian web-portals “Pink.rs”: https://www.pink.rs/politika/357000/stefan-krkobabic-odlikovan-medaljom-za-zasluge-kraljevskom-domu-gruzije-srbi-i-gruzini-na-braniku-otadzbinskog-teritorijalnog-integriteta-video
Serbian informative portal “Vesti.rs”: https://www.vesti.rs/Vesti/Stefan-Krkobabic-odlikovan-Medaljom-za-zasluge-kraljevskog-doma-Gruzije-VIDEO.html
Belgrade news-portal “NBG Reporter”: https://nbgreporter.com/2021/12/07/stefan-krkobabic-odlikovan-medaljom-za-zasluge-kraljevskom-domu-gruzije-srbi-i-gruzini-na-braniku-otadzbinskog-teritorijalnog-integriteta/
Nicolas Fontaine, “Le prince David Bagration de Géorgie reçu au parlement serbe pour récompenser le vice-président de l’Assemblée nationale”, Histoires Royales: https://histoiresroyales.fr/prince-david-bagration-de-georgie-recompense-vice-president-assemblee-nationale-serbie/?fbclid=IwAR1-7C2P3bapRFIJDozJ69LHHsGGt80YREsClW-v2yxjE-08fHsVyArAjAI
