Podgorica, (MINA) - The posthumous awarding of the highest national honors and installation of a monument to Amfilohije Radovic is a continuation of historical revisionism aimed at masking the truth about the disastrous five-year governance of Montenegro, said Andrija Nikolic, head of the parliamentary group of the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS).

“The government, formed under the auspices of the Serbian Orthodox Church, has lost all its authority, and has now come up with the idea to use the image of Amfilohije Radovic to divert attention from its incompetence and the key problems that burden society”, Nikolic told the MINA News Agency.

He added that the government is courting the electorate, because they believe that it is still politically profitable to glorify the cult of Amfilohije Radovie, even though, as he said, they themselves consider his legacy controversial and unacceptable.

“Instead of strengthening unity in the country, the President of Montenegro and the Government of Montenegro have decided to normalize extreme nationalism and deepen divisions. This is a bad message for all civic-minded citizens”, said Nikolic.

He said that during his lifetime, Amfilohije was criticized for his xenophobic, homophobic and nationalist statements, and especially for supporting the expansionist war policies of the 1990s, denying the genocide in Srebrenica and glorifying war criminals.

“However, the absurdity of today’s Montenegro is that the highest national honors and monument are being granted to someone who denied the very existence of Montenegrins as a nation”, Nikolic concluded.