DODIK EXTENDS CHRISTMAS GREETINGS, WISHING HOLIDAY SEASON BRING PEACE, HEALTH AND JOY

BANJA LUKA, JANUARY 6 /SRNA/ - SNSD president Milorad Dodik extended Christmas greetings to the Serbian people, wishing that these holiday days bring peace, health, and spiritual joy, and emphasized that Republika Srpska is a framework within which stability can be guaranteed.

As a symbol of a new beginning and new hope, Dodik noted that Christmas brings us together and calls us to unity, encouraging us, both in good times and in difficult moments, to find strength in joy and to offer comfort to one another. "Dear brothers and sisters, dear Orthodox Serbs, Christmas is a feast of birth, love, and forgiveness, and therefore it is important that we gather around our families, around the people dear to us, devote these days to them, and above all express our commitment to a stable family life and a humane way of living," Dodik stated. Dodik emphasized that Christmas is a day when we come together and wish, once again, for our lives to be good, expressed through love, through forgiveness, and through all that makes a person truly human. "This is why Christmas is indispensable in our lives and in our history. Our Holy Orthodox Church teaches us that devotion to Christmas certainly gives faith in new life," Dodik emphasized in a video message posted on X. He pointed out that this faith was what was needed in the most difficult periods of Serbian history, when members of the Serbian Orthodox Church were persecuted and when it was extremely dangerous to believe in what we believe in today. "Gathering around our Serbian Orthodox Church means gathering around our faith; it means gathering around our people. That is why Christmas, along with our Serbian Orthodox Church and our faith, is indispensable in our lives," Dodik stressed. Convinced of this, he emphasized that the Serb people in Republika Srpska and wherever Serbs live spread their love and faith both toward others and toward themselves, in the hope that peace will prevail in the world, that tranquility will reign, that our families will be stable, and that they will be able to live under predictable and secure conditions. "Republika Srpska is certainly the framework within which we can guarantee that our lives can be stable. Therefore, Merry Christmas to you. Peace of God, Christ is born," Dodik concluded.