Jovan Bjegović

The holy hieromartyr Jovan Bjegović (1910-1941) was a priest and catechist at the gymnasium in Bihać, in the diocese of Banja Luka, killed by the Ustaše in 1941. He is numbered among the martyrs of the diocese of Gornji Karlovac; 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 was born on 6 February 1910 in Divoselo, in the Gospić district. He graduated from the seminary at Bitola in 1931, was ordained presbyter on 2 May 1931 and appointed temporary parish priest at Mogorić. From 1 December 1937 he was an official of the church court at Plaški until 10 August 1939. Being a graduate of the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade (1937), he was appointed on 11 August 1939 substitute teacher at the state gymnasium in Bihać, where he remained to the end.

He was arrested by the Ustaše on 24 June 1941 and taken to the camp at Bosanski Petrovac, where he stayed until 21 July 1941, when he was taken with others toward the village of Risovac. According to one version he was taken to the island of Pag, from which no one returned alive. He married Milica and had four children; the fourth, his daughter Nevenka, born posthumously in early 1942, he never saw.