GREĐANI MARKS ST. PETKA - CHURCH PATRON SAINT'S DAY

OKUČANI, OCTOBER 27 /SRNA/ - A liturgy was served today in Gređani near Okučani to mark St. Petka, the patron saint's day of the church that also houses a memorial plaque to 18 Serbs from the village killed between 1991 and 1995.

The liturgy was served by priests of the Eparchy of Pakrac and Slavonia.

In 2016, His Grace Bishop Jovan of Pakrac and Slavonia consecrated the memorial plaque to the 18 murdered Serbs in the old part of the Church of St. Petka in Gređani.

The plaque bears the names of the murdered villagers: Draginja and Đuro Čalić, Milka and Rade Gaćeša, Rajko Gljivica, Savo Jagličić, Milan and Siniša Keser, Rajko Savić, Obrad Kovačević, Nikola Kuzmić, Ilija Kuže, Ignjatija Ružić, Ostoja Miladinović, Vojislav Nikšić, Jovan Radujković, and Simo and Ljubica Zjalić.

On September 5, 1991, in Gređani near Okučani in Western Slavonia, members of the Croatian paramilitary unit "Tigers" committed a horrific crime against dozens of Serb civilians and Territorial Defense members, many of whom are still listed as missing.

A number of Serb soldiers and civilians from Gređani whose names are on the plaque were killed during the war. Croatian paramilitaries entered the Serb villages of Gređani and Čovac after the former JNA withdrew to its starting positions on the Strug canal.

On the night of September 5 to 6, at around 10 p.m., the "Tigers" paramilitary group was the first to enter Gređani from the direction of the villages of Mlaka and Novi Varoš. They disarmed the village guard, after which a massacre of Serb civilians followed.

No one has yet been prosecuted for this crime before Croatian or international courts, and the Hague Tribunal never conducted a thorough investigation into war crimes committed against Serbs in Western Slavonia during the last war.

On May 8, 1944, Pavelić's Ustasha massacred 12 Serb boys from Gređani who were tending livestock in the fields near the Strug canal.

During the Second World War, the Ustasha forcibly took several hundred villagers from Gređani, Čovac and Vrbovljani, including the elderly, women and children, to the concentration camps of Jasenovac and Stara Gradiška, as well as to Mlaka and Uštica, from which most never returned alive.

Before the war, the village school and football club in Gređani were named "May 8" in memory of that terrible crime.

During the last war, members of the Croatian Army burned down the village school, which has not been rebuilt to this day.

The Church of St. Petka, built in 1752, was destroyed in the Second World War. Construction of a new church began after the war but was never completed.

Under Croatia's territorial organization, the village of Gređani belongs to Brod-Posavina County and the municipality of Stara Gradiška. In the former Republic of Srpska Krajina, it belonged to the municipality of Okučani, and in the former SFRY to the municipality of Nova Gradiška.