Milan Banjac

Holy New Martyr Milan Banjac was a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church, parish priest at Drvar, born at Drvar on 11 February 1886 and killed at Risovac on 16 June 1941. He is commemorated on 26 May (8 June by the new calendar).

He finished the theological and teachers' school at Prizren and was ordained deacon and priest in 1910 at Banja Luka. He then served in two parishes. In the First World War he was imprisoned at Arad, and from 1918 to 1941 he was parish priest at Drvar. He received the Order of Saint Sava of the fifth class.

The Ustaše arrested him on 14 June 1941, together with some thirty other prominent Serbs of Drvar. First they were taken to Bosanski Petrovac, and on 16 June to a cave at Risova greda. There all were killed and thrown into the cave. Surviving witnesses told that Milan Banjac was tortured the most: they cut off his hands, ears and nose, and as they cut off his nose and ears they pushed the cut-⁠off pieces into his mouth and said mockingly: "Lick, priest, your dog's blood." The priest Milan Golubović was thrown into the same pit. At the session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Church on 20 May (7 May) 2003, on the proposal of the bishop of Bihać-⁠Petrovac, he was numbered in the council of the holy hieromartyrs of the Church of God.