Nikolaj Velimirović

Saint Nikolaj Velimirović, hierarch, bishop of Ohrid and Žiča, was a Serbian theologian, preacher and writer, often called the new John Chrysostom. He died in America in 1956. He is commemorated on 18 March (5 March by the old calendar) and on 3 May (20 April by the old), the day of the return of his relics to Serbia.

Childhood and learning

He was born on 23 December 1880 by the old calendar, in the village of Lelić near Valjevo, on the day when Saint Naum of Ohrid is celebrated, whose monastery was later to be his see. He was the first of the nine children of Dragomir and Katarina Velimirović, devout peasants. Being very frail, he was baptized soon after birth at the Ćelije monastery, with the name Nikola, after Saint Nicholas, the family’s patron. The first lessons about God and the lives of the saints he received from his mother, who took him to the monastery for prayer and Holy Communion. He learned first at Ćelije, then at Valjevo. He tried to enter the Military Academy but was not accepted because of poor health, and he was then admitted to the Seminary of Saint Sava in Belgrade, where he read widely among Eastern and Western authors. He finished in 1905. Sent to continue his studies in the West, he learned Russian, French and German well and took a doctorate in theology at Bern in 1908, with a work on faith in the resurrection of Christ as the foundation of the dogmas of the apostolic Church. In 1910 he received a second doctorate, for a historical work. He also studied for a time in England, but it is not known whether he finished his research there.

Monastic vows and episcopate

In youth he came close to dying of dysentery and resolved that, if he survived, he would dedicate his life to God. He survived and was tonsured a monk in 1909, with the name Nikolaj. He was ordained and quickly became a prominent figure of the Serbian Orthodox Church, especially in its relations with the West. In 1920 he was elected bishop of Ohrid and Žiča, a ministry he bore until his death. He was a gifted orator, and his sermons and writings had a great echo. Under his urging a current of prayer and lived church life grew stronger among the people. He supported the unity of all the Orthodox Churches and formed good relations with the Anglican Communion and the Episcopal Church in America.

Trial and end

When Nazi Germany occupied Yugoslavia, in the Second World War, the bishop was imprisoned and in the end taken to the camp at Dachau, where he was held from September to November 1944 together with Patriarch Gavrilo. After the war he did not wish to return to Yugoslavia, now under a communist regime, and in 1946 he went to the United States, where he remained until his death, on 18 March 1956. He was a man of firm opinions, which in the years after his death were sometimes disputed. On 24 May 2003 the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church numbered him among the saints as Saint Nikolaj of Ohrid and Žiča.