Jacob of Tuman

Venerable Jacob the New of Tuman (in the world Radoje Arsović, 1894-1946) was a Serbian monk and confessor, a doctor of philosophy and of law, who left a diplomatic career for monastic life and the preaching of Christ's truth. He was beaten by men of the Communist regime and died six days later, in 1946. The Serbian Orthodox Church glorified him in 2017. He is commemorated on 8 August by the old calendar, which is 21 August by the new.

Youth and studies

He was born on 13 December 1894 in the village of Kušići near Ivanjica, in the Ravna Gora region, and was baptized with the name Radoje. He finished primary school and gymnasium in Serbia, then studied in France, where he earned two doctorates: in philosophy at the Sorbonne and in law at Montpellier. In his secular life he also took up medicine and theology. He worked as an official in the diplomatic service of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in France, and in 1929 was appointed to Paris.

The monastic calling

After the First World War he met Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović, who had a great influence on him and urged him to dedicate himself to the Church. He was an active participant in the Bogomoljci movement, wrote numerous spiritual articles and translated. In 1937 he translated and published at Kragujevac the book Lives of the Holy Maidens. After the gathering of the Bogomoljci at Vrnjačka Banja he left the diplomatic service and came to Ohrid, then to Bitola, where he served beside Bishop Nikolaj. There he was tonsured a monk in 1938, with the name Jacob.

An intellectual with two doctorates and a good place in society left the world and lived in strict asceticism. He entered the brotherhood of Žiča Monastery and worked in the monastery's printing house, not shrinking from simple and dirty work and doing it in full obedience. He was often content with the leftovers from the other monks' table, had only two worn mantles and never lay in a bed, staying at prayer. Until February 1941 he edited the journals Pismo and Misionar at Kragujevac, walking with a suitcase full of books between Čačak and Kraljevo.

Father Jacob was silent, humble, gentle and gifted with foresight. He foresaw the German bombing of Belgrade and the suffering of the Serbian people. Before the war he walked through Kraljevo leading oxen yoked together, to show the people that slavery awaited them.

The war years

In the autumn of 1941, when the Germans bombed Žiča Monastery, the other monks fled but Father Jacob stayed in the church to serve. The left side of the church was destroyed, and he was saved in the right side, in the choir stall under the fresco of the Crucifixion. That year he was at Ljubostinja, with Bishop Nikolaj. During the war years he served in the churches of Belgrade, and when that was forbidden him, in gymnasiums and schools. In the spring of 1944 he began gathering children around him in Belgrade, giving them small crosses and teaching them the songs from Bishop Nikolaj's Spiritual Lyre, and often took them to the church of the Mother of God. He continued this work after the Communists came to power.

Martyrdom

In 1945 he was arrested by the political police after a sermon and tortured at interrogations to make him renounce his "conservative religious convictions", then released. In 1946 he brought from Belgrade 8,000 copies of the Lord's Prayer and distributed them to travellers at the railway station in Požarevac. At night, on the road between Požarevac and Rabrovo, he was attacked and beaten almost to death by UDBA men. Peasants of Rabrovo found him maimed and called a priest. After six days, having confessed and received communion, he fell asleep in the house of the believer Vasa Popović. He was buried at Tuman Monastery, as he had wished.

Glorification

In December 2014, with the blessing of Bishop Ignatije of Braničevo, his grave was opened and his relics were found whole and incorrupt. In May 2017 the Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church decided to canonize him as Venerable Jacob the New of Tuman.