BOSNIAN FRIARS' RECONSTRUCTED COLLEGE IN SARAJEVO OPENED CEREMONIA

CEREMONIA $ LLY SARAJEVO, March 25 (Hina) - The reconstructed building of Bosnian Franciscans' theological college in the Sarajevo district of Nedzarici, was opened ceremonially on Tuesday when the official return of the institution to the Bosnian capital was marked. The Bosnian Franciscan theological college had to be in exile in Samobor, near Zagreb, for four years when Bosnian Serb forces occupied that part of Sarajevo. A Croat member of Bosnia-Herzegovina's Presidency, Kresimir Zubak, President and Vice President of the (Croat-Moslem) Federation, Vladimir Soljic and Ejup Ganic respectively, the Federation's Premier, Edhem Bicakcic, and many state and federal ministers, a deputy to the international High Representative to Bosnia, Michael Steiner, and Croatian Ambassador to Bosnia, Darinko Bago attended the ceremonial opening. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sarajevo, Cardinal Vinko Puljic also addressed the ceremony. The head of Bosnian Franciscans, Fr. Petar Andjelovic, said that the return of about 20 professors and 60 students to Sarajevo raised a spark of hope of opening the door for the return of hundreds of thousands of refugees. "While others think that one should flee Bosnia, friars are bringing back all what they have (to the country)," Fr. Petar Andjelovic said and thanked friars' supporters. He recalled that friars had been profoundly incorporated into Bosnia, and had been sharing the destiny of this country for seven centuries so that the survival both of those friars and Bosnia had been inextricably linked. On June 8, 1992, Serb paramilitaries took professors and students of the Franciscans' college captive and held them for two days in the building when they forced them to leave it. It was for the first time in the centuries-long history of Bosnian Franciscan- led schools that such an institution had to be relocated from Sarajevo. During the siege of Sarajevo, Serbs used the building of the college as their military fortification and badly damaged at the time. They looted the library, all furniture and equipment and destroyed the rest of it. Therefore it was necessary that Franciscan communities in Bosnia, Croatia, Austria and Germany helped renovate the building. (hina) jn mš 251631 MET mar 97