Nikodim Janjušević

Holy New Martyr Nikodim Janjušević was an archimandrite of the Serbian Orthodox Church, an officer and commander of the Montenegrin army, and abbot of Župa Nikšićka monastery. He was born with the name Nikola on 6 December 1875 at Ozrinići near Nikšić, of parents Stojan and Vemija. He finished the seminary at Cetinje and resolved to become a monk; he was ordained hierodeacon in 1899 and hieromonk in 1900. He took part in the wars of liberation of 1912 to 1918 and served the Church and the people for nearly half a century. He was made abbot, then archimandrite in 1923. After the union of Montenegro with Serbia he fled to Italy, then to the United States, where between 1923 and 1926 he served at Detroit, in the church of Saint Basil of Ostrog, among the Montenegrin emigrants; he returned to the kingdom in 1926, pardoned.

During the Second World War he was abbot of Župa monastery near Nikšić, to whose building he had contributed (the guest house, 1928). He was the first victim of the communists in the Nikšić region. On 29 June 1941, in the evening, after a day's work on the monastery estate, he withdrew to his cell and locked the door as a group of partisans came to the gate. They knocked at the door and demanded that he open; the archimandrite shouted at them to be gone, calling them scoundrels, and the partisans fired through the door. He died the same day at Župa Nikšićka monastery.