Pursuant to the decision of the Macedonian Government, St. Sava’s Day has for five years now been celebrated as the national and state holiday of the Serbian community in Macedonia. The St. Sava Academy began to the notes of the two countries’ national anthems, as well as the Hymn to St. Sava. The Academy was addressed by the two countries’ prime ministers, Nikola Gruevski and Ivica Dacic, respectively. The Serbian Government’s Minister of Justice Nikola Selakovic held the St. Sava sermon, while the Deputy Director of the Government’s Office for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, Aleksandar Vlajkovic, was also among the Serbian officials to attend the St. Sava Academy.
In Skopje, Aleksandar Cotric and Milorad Stosic met with the Macedonian Government’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Dragan Nedeljkovic and the Macedonian MP and President of the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia, Ivan Stoilkovic.
On the behalf of the Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, Cotric said he was pleased by the organisation of the ceremonial Academy attended by more than a thousand visitors and the highest Macedonian and Serbian officials, which attests to the high level of cooperation and understanding between the two states, as well as the level of rights achieved for the Serbian people in Macedonia.
The representatives of the Assembly’s Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region presented the representatives of the Democratic Party of Serbs in Macedonia with a monograph on the history of parliamentarism in Serbia and invited them to take part in the Public Hearing on the topic “Political and Other Rights of the Serbian People in the Region”, to be held at the Serbian Assembly on 14 February.