Matija Stijačić

Holy New Martyr Matija Stijačić was born on 11 December 1883 at Klobuk, twenty kilometres east of Trebinje, and was a protopresbyter of the Serbian Orthodox Church. He was killed by the Ustasha on 12 April 1941 in the Jadovno camp. He was the son of Milica and Vidak Stijačić. After finishing the seminary and being ordained, he went at the beginning of the twentieth century with his wife Anica and a cousin across the Atlantic, where he served several parishes in America and was also a very successful Orthodox missionary among Serbs and also among Greeks, Romanians and Croats.

For nearly three decades he served in Serbian Orthodox communities in the north-⁠eastern United States and south-⁠eastern Canada. At the proposal of Nikola Tesla he then served as protopresbyter of the Smiljan parish from 1935 until 12 April 1941, when he was killed by the Croatian Ustasha in a savage manner.