Monastery Gomirje in Croatia

The first monastery we visited crossing Croatia (see explanations here) was Gomirje Monastery, also called „Manastir Sv. Jovana Pretece“.

I was quiet surprised to see that the monastery was in a relatively good shape and it didn't looked like it has been destroyed or devastated in the balkan wars. A inhabitant of the monastery who showed us around gave us the explanation for that: the monastery was in the "neutral" zone during the croatian war of independence 1991 -95 so it could not be attacked.

This is the most westward monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Europe and is located in Gorski kotar in the Primorsko-goranska County and is a significant parochial centre of the Serbian ethnic community whose most important feast is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Tourists of all kind of religions visit the monastery and the monastery makes efforts to encourage also the croatian catholic community to use their library.



The atmosphere in this monastery is pretty relaxed, as they don't feel any agressions or resentments from the local environment. The serbian ethnic community must simply not show of serbian national symbols.







The complex is in the ownership of the Serbian Orthodox church. After World War II it became a nunnery while in its previous history monks inhabited the monastery.



On the territory of the national state the monastery has a great parochial significance for the most populous, Serbian ethnic community, and has carried out its function continuously since the 17th century. The Serbian community that has settled in this region bought the estate from the Frankopan princes.



The monastery is particularly significant in the revolutionary year of 1848, when viceroy Jelačić recruited his army under its wing and prior Stavrofor of that time was a member of the Croatian Parliament and gave his priory for humanitarian purposes. The monastery played an important humanitarian role at that time, sheltering refugees and storing humanitarian aid.







The monastery has been renovated continually since 1999. The church roof has been repaired and the metal sheet roof covering replaced on the bell tower and church dome. The static consolidation of the apse was undertaken and the church facades and tower forms reconstructed. In addition, new drainage and rainwater canalisation systems have also been installed. A water supply system was brought to the complex and the semi-interred concrete cistern removed and a new one constructed.







The monastery church is oriented and located in the courtyard of the two storey lodging houses with a "U" shaped ground plan open to the South toward the river basin of the Dobra so that the mutual relationship of the construction directions are mildly slanting.

Today the complex is enclosed with a wall of façade brick and originally had a paling fence. The church and monastery were built from stone with arches, while the floors and roofing were made from wood. The roof covering is from sheet metal and grooved brick, originally shingle.

Until 1879 an adapted Frankopan tower with a square ground plan and an elaborately structured facade in the historicist form and with the same function and which crumbled from age stood in the place of the present day bell tower.

To the North, at the edge of the wood a group of stone and wooden outbuildings stood, including barns, hay-lofts storehouses and workshops and a walled-in monastery graveyard within which was the first church of which there is no trace today.







The monastery owns quite a lot of land, including woods, meadows, hayfields, plough-fields and on the northern side of the lodging house a large orchard. The present day church was consecrated in 1730. The monastery burned down in 1789 and again in 1812 and was renovated in 1842-46 and again in 1889. The complex was also damaged and burned in the First and Second world wars, repaired rather unprofessionally during the 50's of the 20th century.







The church is a typical Orthodox place of worship with an altar, iconostasis, a dome standing on four square columns and and tower at the entrance like those built in the baroque period throughout Lika, Kordun and Banija.









The interior was decorated with two layers of sign-paintings of which the baroque style one was preserved as the lower layer in the sanctuary and the upper one in the entire church which has two historicist phases. Because of the threat during World War II the baroque iconostasis with large-sized icons on canvas was dismantled and stored in Karlovac and Zagreb.







The monument is of national interest since it housed the main painting school, which supplied the surrounding Orthodox monasteries with iconostases in the manner of the Russian school. The monks were also engaged in bookbinding.





All the windows on the church and those that were in total disrepair in the hallway of the first floor of the lodging house have been replaced.

All the outbuildings also have to be renovated, primarily their roofs and wooden parts of superstructure on the stone foundations.







Here the website of the monastery and here the Council of Europe documentation to download.

Monastery Krupa in Republika Srpska Krajina

In the next few post, I will share here my travel experiences during this summer. I came back with lots of pictures, sketches in my diary and informations, and slowly I'll put everything online.


Basically I started from my hometown Lugano, crossing Italy from Milano to Venezia to head down to Montenegro to spend some time at the sea with my family. But who knows us, knows also that we can not just speed down directly by the fastest way to destination, and that we like to stop and see also what's in between two destinations.

We opted for driving away from the croatian tourist paths prepared for showing to international customers, and to choose a picturesque road throught Republika Srpska Krajina where some serbian orthodox monasteries were to be visted. One of them is Monastery Krupa in the Velebit mountain park.

Otac (Father) Gavrilo, who runs the monastery now, received us warmly and told us about life in the monastery and the situation of serbian orthodox life in these days Croatia. It seems that as long as they don't show serbian flaggs or cyrillic writing they can go on with their peaceful life. It was not always like that!



Beneath the rocky mountain Velebit, settled in the picturesque valley where the river Krupa springs, surrounded by the mountain and the hills, Krupa lives its peaceful life. It was built in 1317 in the time of King Milutin. As it is known, the basement of the monastery was built by the monks from the nearby monastery Bosanska Krupa. The Krupa Monastery shares the destiny with the orthodox people in this region to whom it belonged. Many times the monastery walls laid in ruins due to different irruptions and had always to be renewed.


In the time of Emperor Dusan, in 1345, the monastery was rebuilt for the first time. King Milutin, his son Stefan of Decani and his grand son Stefan Dusan issued statements wich said that they gave the land to the monastery where the monks could lead their life. Turks also confirmed this by giving a special written confirmation directly frm their Emperor from Istanbul.


During the Venetian-Turkish war, the monastery was ruined sevral times, the worst in 1502 and 1620. The same happened in the 20th century. In 1941 Pavelic's Ustaša - Croatian Revolutionary Movement desacrated the monastery.

In 1995 it was seroiusly devastated (even if the State of Croatia made "all efforts" to protect it) in Operation "Oluja" supported by former american president Bill Clinton who "believed the Serbs could only be brought to the negotiating table if they sustained major losses on the ground".

Despite of that, the monastery was always rebuilt like it is today.


In the 1960's frescoes where found in the monastery church, that were paited by the monk of Hilandar (he painted the dining room there) Georgije Mitrofanovic between 1617-1618. Also icons from italo-cretan school painter Jovan Apaka were found.

The interior open court of the monastery.


For more information, here is the official site of the monastery and here the wikipedia entry (still small in the english version).

Monastery Krupa honored many well known writers of Serbian literature. Dositej Obradovic , serbian author, poet and philosopher, lived here a significant period of his life and also his coeval and compatriot teacher Vasilije.

Gerasim Zelić (1752–1838) was a Serbian Orthodox archimandrite and writer.As early as 1784, Gerasim had argued the need for Slavic rather than Greek clerics, but it was not until the 1820s that action was taken in this regard. He also spent time in Krupa Monastery as a lot of other significant writers.

Great reconstruction were done in 1855 with help of Russia, Austria and Serbia. The Austrian government however stipulated the reconstruction demanding that all the monastery's windows have to be made as gothic style lanced windows.

Magic Johnson Turns 50 and He Thanks HIV Treatments

Where were you November 7 1991?

I know precisely where I was.

My student Tricia Hunter and I had just finished collecting AIDS attitude and behavior surveys in the Chicago transit system. We had been conducting a behavioral surveillance study with a cross section of the city. That is, we were asking the good people of Chicago to fill out surveys as they waited for their train.

I came home that evening to find Magic Johnson on the news. Earvin Magic Johnson, arguably the most recognized face in professional basketball, announced his retirement after testing HIV+.

I was in Chicago. Michael Jordon’s Chicago. The Champion Chicago Bull’s Chicago.

Perhaps with the exception of LA, no city could have been more stunned by Magic’s announcement than Chicago.



It quickly became apparent that our behavioral surveillance research had ended. Everything that America was thinking about AIDS changed in that moment.
UPDATE: Magic addresses the 2009 National HIV/AIDS Conference in Atlanta
Johnson "acknowledged him being HIV positive has been good for the movement to stop the spread of HIV by being able to raise awareness, but it also has been a “curse.”
I was depressed. Not only had this great man fallen to the scourge of HIV, but my first study as a new faculty member at Loyola of Chicago was screwed.
It was the next day that we realized how we could document what would become known as the Magic Johnson Effect. We could test whether the power of celebrity could change the course of an epidemic.

Tricia and I continued data collection and observed huge changes in AIDS attitudes and behavior in Chicago. The most pronounced changes occurred among those who identified closest with Magic Johnson - young men, particularly African American men. We saw dramatic increases in HIV testing that still have not returned to levels pre-November 7 1991. Our results mirrored those of a few other researchers who were in similar positions to compare the world before and after Magic Johnson’s announcement.

A few years later I had the opportunity to ask Magic Johnson for his autograph. He signed our article about the effect that his announcement had on Chicago men and women. Now how Geeky Cool is that?!

Magic said that he would need to start teaching again. And he has lived his promise.

Magic Johnson is literally a poster image for HIV treatments. He has been on antiretroviral drugs for at least 10 years. He has remained so healthy on antiretrovirals that many have mistakenly thought that Magic Johnson’s HIV infection is cured. Of course, he is not cured. But like countless others who receive HIV treatments, Magic Johnson is managing his HIV infection and he is thriving.

So what do the AIDS Deniers say about the successful treatment of Magic Johnson?

They deny it, of course.

Some AIDS Deniers say Magic is not HIV+.
Gary Null says that Magic Johnson is not HIV positive. “I got this call from Magic Johnson's top person asking would I help Magic Johnson. [We] had a long conversation. I sent him my protocols, by the way. Now, normally I don't go on the record with anyone I help. I've helped over 1300 very famous people, including members of the Royal Family, including people who are chair people of Committees in Congress and Senate….But Magic Johnson, I will go on the record and state that I would like Magic Johnson to have a blood chemistry test where I would tell what he would be tested for, Herpes 1, 2, and 6, and hepatitis. I would like to see, does Magic Johnson have herpes? Because if he has herpes, herpes will test you positive for the HIV virus.”

Some AIDS Deniers say Magic is HIV+ but he is lying about being treated.
“Magic Johnson presents a major problem for HIV dissenters, because he has stated in public that he takes his antiviral cocktail – the HAART regime – dutifully, and does not visibly suffer from fatty lumps and humps. Nor has he collapsed from kidney and liver damage, which dissenters claim is the fate of all who take these AIDS medicines, certainly within the many years that Magic has been taking his medicine after being diagnosed HIV positive. HIV dissenters like to solve the inconsistency with their counter-theory of the dangerous irrelevancy of anti-HIV drugs to AIDS by claiming that Magic has said privately he doesn’t touch the stuff.”

Other AIDS Deniers say Magic is being treated but not with AZT.
For example, Peter Duesberg alleges, Magic Johnson only took AZT briefly but then discontinued using it, and that is why he is healthy.

Magic Johnson has been on combination ‘drug cocktails’ that include AZT. He in fact has taken and promotes the drug Combivir that combines AZT with another antiretroviral. Magic Johnson is thriving on HIV treatments.

Other people with HIV who have refused treatment have not fared so well. Fellow Los Angelean Christine Maggiore refused treatment and died of AIDS-related complications at age 52. Maggiore's AIDS Denial was even impermeable to the Magic Johnson Effect. Now that is what you call denial!

Happy 50th Birthday Mr. Johnson!!

Wishing you many, many more!

Goodbye Duesberg's and Ruggiero's Articles! Did You Ever Exist?

Over the past couple of months two AIDS Denialism articles were published in a journal called Medical Hypotheses. These papers surprised many of us because Medical Hypotheses was once a peer-reviewed medical journal that is printed by the world’s largest science publisher Elsevier. But it did not take much to notice that these papers were not peer reviewed.

The article “Aids denialism at the ministry of health” by Marco Ruggiero (seen here at the gates of UC Berkeley) was received by Medical Hypotheses on June 3, 2009 and was accepted on June 3, 2009. Hmmm, now that was fast. And the article “HIV-AIDS hypothesis out of touch with South African AIDS – A new perspective” by Peter H. Duesberg, Joshua M. Nicholson, David Rasnick, Christian Fiala, and Henry H. Bauer was received on June 9, 2009 and accepted on June 11, 2009. Obviously the Editor at least contemplated Duesberg’s article before accepting it. Just as obvious, neither paper underwent peer review.



Duesberg’s paper had actually been submitted to a legitimate journal called the Journal of AIDS and rejected after peer review. The filters of peer review work most of the time. But of course, being Denialists Duesberg and friends made the following claim in their Medical Hypotheses article…

“A precursor of this paper was rejected by the Journal of AIDS, which published the Chigwedere et al. article, with political and ad hominem arguments but without offering even one reference for an incorrect number or statement of our paper (available on request).”

The AIDS Deniers were joyful because they once again circumvented peer review and managed to seep into a what could appear to be a scientific outlet. For instance author Henry Bauer took time away from searching for Monsters in the bog to write at his blog…

“A remarkable coup has just transpired in publishing serious questions about HIV/AIDS in a mainstream journal. A press release describes the article concerned, which is currently in press at Medical Hypotheses (though already available on-line to subscribers).”

And cheerleader David Crowe was sure to post at his website “July 8, 2009–AIDS Denialism at the Italian Ministry of Health? Six doctors from the University of Firenze (Florence) compile evidence that the Italian Ministry of Health doesn't really believe in the infectious AIDS theory in an article in ‘Medical Hypotheses’.”

As an author who publishes in Elsevier journals, I found it hard to believe that the company would so easily and repeatedly publish pseudoscience. As a tax payer, I was outraged that the State of Connecticut was purchasing a pseudoscience outlet for our state libraries. Librarians started receiving letters that included the following statement…

“Medical Hypotheses has become a tool for the legitimization of pseudoscientific movement with aims antithetical to the goal of public health goal. One such movement, AIDS denialism, questions the existence of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and/or its role in causing AIDS. The public health consequences of this movement have been dire, particularly in South Africa, where several hundred thousand people are estimated to have died because availability of treatments was delayed due to the influence of AIDS denialists. Medical Hypotheses, with its lack of peer review and careful editorial oversight, has published numerous articles advancing AIDS denialism, allowing individual denialists, none of whom has ever published original research on HIV, to claim legitimacy as HIV researchers because their work has, after all, appeared in a “scientific” journal. In the most recent of these articles, two prominent denialists, David Rasnick and Peter Duesberg, along with several co-authors, claim ludicrously that HIV and AIDS have had no significant effect on public health in Africa and that antiviral medication has had no effect on AIDS mortality in North America and Europe. The authors make these claims by selectively quoting and misquoting the legitimate scientific literature in a manner that even the most cursory editorial oversight could not allow. It appears that the false claims in this paper were not vetted by the editor of Medical Hypotheses and that the journal, by publishing this and similar papers, has contributed significantly to the spread of medical misinformation and loss of life and wellbeing.”

But in the words of Henry Bauer, “a remarkable coup has just transpired”. The papers are gone. They have vanished. They are no more.

Ruggiero’s and Duesberg’s articles no longer exist at the Medical Hypotheses website. The articles that once were are no more. Oh sure, there are plenty of copies floating around. I know I have mine. And the abstract summaries have not yet been removed from the major indexing services, although that should hopefully happen soon.

This is yet another case where AIDS Denialists can fool some of the people some of the time, even journal editors. But once exposed for who and what they are, the damage caused by Denialists can stop and even be undone.

UPDATE: Examining Elsevier’s policies on removing articles from electronic data bases, which is the case for Duesberg and Ruggiero’s paper, it is apparent that the publisher found the articles to pose a threat to public health. A just finding...

Articles are removed when…

“the identification of false or inaccurate data that, if acted upon,
would pose a serious health risk (See Article removal or replacement).”

“In an extremely limited number of cases, it may unfortunately be necessary
to remove an article from the online database. This will only occur where
the article is clearly defamatory, or infringes others' legal rights, or
where the article is, or we have good reason to expect it will be, the
subject of a court order, or where the article, if acted upon, might pose
a serious health risk.

In these circumstances, while the metadata (title and authors) will be
retained, the text will be replaced with a screen indicating that the
article has been removed for legal reasons.”