Nestor (Trkulja)

Holy Hieromartyr Nestor (Trkulja) was the abbot of the Mileševa Monastery and was shot by the partisans in 1941. He was born on 16 October 1899 at Crni Lug, near Bosansko Grahovo. After monastic school, he became a monk in 1924 at the Rakovica monastery and was ordained priest the same year. Before the start of the Second World War he was appointed abbot of Mileševa.

The partisans shot him on 27 October 1941, on an unconfirmed charge of having denounced a fighter to the Italians; another accusation, that he organised Chetniks, was supported by no proof. He was taken from his quarters at night, led to the forest above the holy monastery and killed without trial; he asked that his life be spared and said he had done nothing. Peasants from the surroundings found his body a few days later and buried him in a Christian manner. He is among the new martyrs of Dabar-⁠Bosnia and Mileševa, numbered among the saints by the Serbian Orthodox Church; their common commemoration is on 5 July, old style (18 July, new style).