Bosiljka of Pasjane

Saint New Martyr Bosiljka of Pasjane, born Bosiljka Rajčić, lived in the nineteenth century in the village of Pasjane near Gnjilane, in Kosovo. Her family had come from the surroundings of Kragujevac. She was gentle, sincere, hard-⁠working and obedient, and from childhood helped her family with the work of the house and the fields.

When she was seventeen, at the feast of Saint John the Baptist, she was noticed in Gnjilane by some Albanians from Depce, who watched for a long time for a chance to seize her. In autumn, in a forest, three of them abducted her, firing at her father and brother. Her relatives and the priest of Pasjane spent days trying to prove to the Ottoman authorities in Gnjilane that the girl had been kidnapped, but the authorities delayed the inquiry. In her abductor's house she was pressed, with beatings and persuasion, to renounce her faith and marry. When they brought a Serbian woman who had converted to Islam to persuade her, Bosiljka answered: "I have my own faith. I need no better one, for there is none." And: "Christ is my chosen one. I belong only to Him."

Her abductor, worn out by her resistance, decided to kill her. With two relatives he dragged her on horseback to the river Lapušnica, where they stabbed her and cut her body. The authorities allowed her burial beside the old church; later her remains were walled into the church of the Transfiguration in Pasjane.

The Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church decided on 3 May 2018 to number her among the saints, and she is commemorated on 26 October (old style), which is 13 October in the new style.