The Will of Petar I
From us, Vladika1 Petar,
To the noble Lords of the Spiritual and Secular orders, to the Leaders and Elders, and to all the People of Montenegro and the Highlands,2 with all my heart and most profound greetings!
Everyone knows and sees how I have, from ancient times and days, become feeble and fallen, so much so that I can no longer go anywhere, partly due to old age, but mostly due to all sorts of suffering and toil that I have endured throughout my life for the Montenegrin and Highlander people, and for the freedom of the Christian faith and our fatherland, protecting the people and the poor as my own soul. But I, seeing and recognising my own weakness and incurable illness, and that death has drawn near, have written some necessary letters and books and arranged for them all to be sent where I had something to send after my death, so to all of you, the Montenegrin and Highlander people, I have written and left this book, which all of you should hear and understand well before you bury me.
I implore every Montenegrin and Highlander, small and great, whom I have wronged or caused any sorrow, to forgive me from the bottom of their heart and soul, and likewise, I forgive everyone, young and old, who has ever wronged me, simply let it be from me to everyone for eternity and at the dreadful Judgment of God at the second coming of Christ the Lord.
First and foremost, I make a testament to all the people and swear by the Almighty God, the Creator of this world, and by all the heavenly powers, that you bury me peacefully, in silence, and with universal love, and mourn me gently, so that not even an enemy would speak a harsh word to another at that time.
I beg you with another request and implore you by the fearsome and almighty God, to pledge and affirm your faith upon my dead chest for the sake of all our land and diocese, for all the districts, villages, and tribes, that no one should harm anyone for any reason at least until St. George’s Day and by then, I hope in our Lord and Savior that a way of living will be made clear to you and that the Imperial court will be established throughout the land, which I have requested and wept for from our eternal Protector and Defender, the Tsar of Russia as I have previously told some of you that I care and work for your and our common national well-being and good living, as God knows and as you all will soon know and see.
Beyond that, I most earnestly implore and solemnly swear in each one by the true Almighty God, and I make and leave a heavy and eternal testament, that no one ever touches the Church’s property and wealth, wherever it may be, for the sake of your entire world, your happiness, and your honor and that everyone take care of and protect all Church children, monks, deacons, and my and your servants, as I have always taken care of and protected them, especially my Ivančik and in my place, I appoint and leave as the heir, manager, and guardian of all my and the Church’s property, my nephew Rade Tomov Petrović, in whom I lay hope that he will be a man of work and reason, as much as the most gracious Heavenly Father has willed to bestow, and whom I wholeheartedly and with all my soul commend to God, our Emperor, and all the people of Montenegro and the Highlands for eternity.
At last, I have something more to tell and clarify to you, oh my brothers and the people of Montenegro and the Highlands! Now listen forever and understand from me, who has never deceived you or led anyone to misfortune, I declare to you at my death and this divine truth: how some people greedy for the Moscow money, but undeserving of it, thought and said that I consumed everything and distributed to my brothers whatever money came from Russia from the Tsar to the people, but everyone is mistaken and wrong in this, and I assure you, the faithful and honest, on this path on which I will go forever, that from all the Moscow money, as it is said, I have not taken anything for myself, but it is all intact and in a pile, and that it was given to me by the Tsar for my reputation and disposition according to my requests, for the benefit of the entire Serbian people, but I do not spend that money without great urgency and the greatest need, as I have not spent a single dinar, except what I spent on public works, until the powerful but foolish people disrupted it, for which I remain pure without reproach before God and men. Therefore, I have written to our Tsar and Protector about that money, to make whatever order he wants as for his own money, and he replied to me that he will send his official here, who will receive and spend that money according to the court he will establish in our land, and my greatest wound in my heart, which I will carry to the grave, is that I did not live to see this in my lifetime, as we all longed to see.
If anyone among our people does not accept these my final words and recommendations as true, or if they do not obey everything as the entire letter dictates, but dares to cause any confusion and discord among the people by word or deed, I, at the hour of my death, consign that person, whoever they may be, whether secular or spiritual, to eternal damnation and anathema, along with their kin and progeny, so that their trace and home may be eradicated and obliterated! Likewise, may God grant the same to anyone who seeks to separate you from loyalty to the pious and Christ-loving Russia, and to anyone among you Montenegrins and Highlanders who might consider departing from the protection and hope in our kindred and co-religionist Russia, may God grant that their living flesh falls off and that all temporal and eternal good departs from them! To all the good, faithful, and those who heed and fulfill this my final letter, may my most heartfelt paternal and Archpastoral blessing be upon them from generation to generation and forever and ever! Amen.
On the original, his own family seal and signed by him:
Cetinje, October 18, 1830. Vlad(i)ka PETR s. r.
By the command of His Eminence Lord Metropolitan of Montenegro Petar Petrović Njegoš, written before his death:
Secretary Simeon Milutinović
- Tran. note: Slavic title for bishop-rank ecclesiarchs. ↩︎
- Tran. note: Brda, lit. “the Hills” or “Highlands”, also known as “Sedam Brda” (“The Seven Hills”) was a historic and geographic region in Montenegro, inhabited by the Serbian tribes Bjelopavlići, Bratonožići, Vasojevići, Kuči, Moračani, Piperi and Rovčani. In the XVII until mid-XVIII century, the official name of the country was “Montenegro and the Highlands”, as the Stara Crna Gora (Old Montenegro) or Istinska Crna Gora (True Montenegro) region consisted only of four districts adjacent to the Brda. ↩︎
