"May He Be Damned!"

Priests in heavily ornate robes stood in the pulpits of the principal Serbian Orthodox Churches in Yugoslavia last Sunday, and slowly read out the names of 141 members of Parliament, nine Cabinet Ministers, including that of Yugoslavia's Premier Milan Stoyadinovich. In Belgrade stolid worshipers listened in grim silence, but in other churches congregations throughout the countryside piously ejaculated "May He Be Damned!" as each name was pronounced.

All on the list had been temporarily excommunicated from the Serbian Orthodox Church for supporting a Concordat with the Vatican; all were due to appear for trial before an ecclesiastical court (TIME, Aug. 9 et ante).

While hundreds of thousands of Orthodox adherents boasted that the Premier would have to resign in face of such widespread opposition, he remained obdurate, forbade press mention of the pulpit denunciation, refused to recognize that members of Parliament could be held responsible "by any court even ecclesiastical" for the votes they cast.

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