In his speech held on that occasion, the President of the Parliament of Montenegro Mr Ranko Krivokapić said that a long history of diverse forms of parliamentary tradition in Montenegro had been created by a decisiveness of action of Petar II Petrović Njegoš, and this year we marked 200 years since his birth with piety and pride:

 “It is not by accident that Saint Petar the First is the greatest Petrović. To take his place was a difficult task. Njegoš took that burden at an early age of seventeen. And created work of everlasting worth. Both Saint Petar and Njegoš brought Montenegro closer to Europe with regard to civilisation, which was founded on a unique relation of the Roman Law, Christian heritage and free art and thought and all other religions that visited its space. Saint Petar was European as a lawmaker and thinker of political and holy”, said Mr Krivokapić.

Mr Krivokapić said that Montenegro nowadays was not the same as Montenegro from the time of Njegoš, but a civic state, multicultural society of all Montenegrin citizens, in which all religions were equal, in which the cross and the crescent as two fearsome, juxtaposed symbols, stood in harmony.

“However, that kind of civic and multi-confessional Montenegro would not be possible without Njegoš, and the things which he had left as his legacy”, concluded the President Krivokapić in his speech.