Aleksandar Erdeljan

The holy martyr Aleksandar Erdeljan (1909-1942) was deacon at the cathedral in Novi Sad, serving Bishop Irinej (Ćirić) of Bačka, killed on 23 January 1942 in the Novi Sad massacre. His commemoration belongs to the Synaxis of the Saints who taught and studied at the Theological School of Belgrade, whose celebration was ordered by Patriarch Porfirije in February 2024, pending the official decision; he is also numbered among the martyrs of Bačka.

He was born on 25 March 1909 at Deva (today in Romania), into a family of priests; his brother was Dr Miloš Erdeljan. He graduated from the seminary at Sremski Karlovci in 1928 and from the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade in 1934. In the same year he was ordained and named deacon of Bishop Irinej of Bačka, at the cathedral in Novi Sad. He was a man of great intelligence and wide culture; he knew Hungarian excellently. He had a very pleasant voice and sang beautifully, in the Karlovci tradition of chant, at services and at concerts of sacred music.

He suffered on the third day of the Novi Sad Raid, on 23 January 1942. Horthyist killers burst into his flat on Miletić Street and ordered him to come out. He was killed with a firearm at the corner of Miletić and Grčkoškolska streets. The killers then ransacked and plundered the flat. His honoured body was carried that same day, with those of the other victims from Miletić Street, and thrown under the ice of the Danube.