Catherine Velimirović

Catherine Velimirović was the mother of Saint Nikolaj Velimirović, bishop of Ohrid and Žiča, and a nun at Lelić Monastery. She was born on 12 September 1860 at Strmna Gora, near Valjevo, and fell asleep in the Lord in 1945 at Lelić Monastery. The sources consulted record no synodal canonization for her.

Her name as a layperson was Katarina. Her parents, Aleksa and Pajka Filipović, were pious people; she was the eldest of six children, baptized at Ćelije Monastery. At nineteen she married Dragomir Velimirović of the neighbouring village of Lelić. On the feast of Tucindan, in 1880, God gave her and her husband the first "golden apple", their son Nikola, the future Bishop Nikolaj. After him were born Stevan, Dušan, Ninko, Bogosav, Ljubisav, Aleksa, Nikolija (called Kosana) and Angelina.

The children were raised with care, in faith, hardworking and honest. Nikola was enrolled in school in 1888, proved very gifted and became a teacher. From 1904 days of sorrow began for Mother Katarina: her son Bogosav died at ten; two years later, within one year, Ljubisav, Nikolija and Angelina; in 1907 Stevan, in 1909 Ninko. Her son Nikola, after studies at Bern and a serious illness, became a monk with his parents' blessing, taking the name Nikolaj. In 1914, during the war, Dušan also died, ill with typhus. In 1926 Aleksa died, and in 1929 her husband Dragomir. Mother Katarina went in 1943 to Lelić Monastery near Valjevo, where she was tonsured with the name Ekaterina. She fell asleep in the Lord in Lelić Monastery, where she is buried.