Peter Zimonjić

Saint Peter Zimonjić was Metropolitan of Herzegovina and, from 1920, Metropolitan of Dabar and Bosnia, with his see in Sarajevo. Born in 1866, he was arrested by the Ustasha in May 1941 and killed in the camps of the Independent State of Croatia that summer, and his grave has never been found. The Serbian Orthodox Church venerates him as a hieromartyr and as a shepherd who would not abandon his flock in the hour of danger and died together with it.

Early life and education

He was born on 24 June 1866 at Grahovo and was baptized John. He was the youngest son of Mara and of Vojvoda Bogdan Zimonjić, a priest who took part in the Nevesinje uprising of 1875.

He received his first schooling in his father's house. From 1883 to 1887 he attended the seminary at Reljevo near Sarajevo, and then the Orthodox Theological Faculty at Chernivtsi, the only Orthodox school of that level in the Austro-⁠Hungarian monarchy. He graduated with distinction in 1892 (other sources say 1893) and spent a further year at the University of Vienna.

In 1893 he became an assistant teacher and in 1895 a professor at the theological school in Reljevo, where he taught until the end of the 1900-1901 school year.

Monastic life and first duties

While still a professor, on 6 September 1895, he was tonsured a monk at the monastery of Zitomislic and given the name Peter. In the days that followed Metropolitan Seraphim (Perovic) of Zahumlje and Herzegovina ordained him hierodeacon and then hieromonk.

He was made a synkellos in 1898, and in 1899 Metropolitan Nicholas (Mandic) of Dabar and Bosnia raised him to protosynkellos. From 1899 to October 1900 he was acting head of the theological school at Reljevo. On 20 July 1901 he was appointed a counsellor of the consistory of the Metropolis of Dabar and Bosnia, and in 1903 he was raised to the rank of archimandrite.

Metropolitan of Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina were then under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. On the eve of the feast of Saint George in 1903, Patriarch Joachim III and his Synod, meeting in the patriarchal church of Saint George, chose Archimandrite Peter from among three candidates as Metropolitan of Zahumlje and Herzegovina.

After the election was confirmed by the court in Vienna, his consecration and enthronement took place on Pentecost Tuesday, 27 May 1903 (9 June, New Style), in the cathedral at Mostar. All three Bosnian metropolitans served at the consecration: Nicholas of Dabar and Bosnia, Gregory of Zvornik and Tuzla, and Eugene of Banja Luka and Bihac. More than fifty priests, three hundred delegates of the church and school communities and over three thousand people from all Herzegovina were present. Nearly the whole Serbian press welcomed the choice.

The new metropolitan found his diocese in a neglected and disordered state. People, especially in the towns, rarely went to church, children went unbaptized, and the dead were buried without a priest.

Under Austro-⁠Hungarian occupation the Church was waging a struggle for its church and school autonomy, which was largely settled in 1905. From then on Metropolitan Peter could devote more time to building churches and opening Serbian schools. As a true monk he also hoped to found a school for monastics.

He consecrated many churches in Herzegovina. In 1904 he consecrated the churches of the Archangel Michael at Baljci near Bileca, the Apostles Peter and Paul at Lukavica near Nevesinje, and Saint George at Brvenik. These were followed by the church of Saints Joachim and Anna at Vrpolje (1906), the churches of Saint Basil of Ostrog at Ulog and of the Ascension at Ljuti Do (1907), the cathedral of the Transfiguration at Trebinje, the church of Saints Peter and Paul at Zgonjevo and the church of Saint Basil of Ostrog at Avtovac (1908), and in 1910 the churches of Saints Constantine and Helen at Pridvorci and of the holy Prince Lazar at Vlahovici.

He ordained fourteen new priests, and in his time the metropolitan residence in Mostar was built.

Years of war

The annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-⁠Hungary in 1908 shattered the hopes of the Serbs there for an early deliverance. The Balkan Wars followed, and the First World War began with arrests, killings and persecution of Orthodox priests. In the diocese of Herzegovina four priests were killed or hanged, and several more died in camps or after returning home.

In 1912, in the Bosnian Diet, Metropolitan Peter was the first to sign the declaration of the Serbian deputies of 2 September, issued during the conflict between Austria-⁠Hungary and the Kingdom of Serbia over Serbia's access to the Adriatic.

After the Sarajevo assassination of 1914, when hard days came for the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he had the courage to preach in the Mostar cathedral against the persecution, in the presence of an Austro-⁠Hungarian general and the political authorities. He demanded that the state stop the persecution and protect the Serbs, warning that otherwise he would appeal to the emperor or call his people to rise up.

During the wartime famine he gathered hungry children through his priests and sent them to Vojvodina to be fed. He greeted the end of the war in Mostar and at once took an active part in the work of uniting the Serbian Orthodox Church, welcoming the restoration of the Serbian Patriarchate.

Metropolitan of Dabar and Bosnia

The Holy Synod of the united Serbian Church elected him Metropolitan of Dabar and Bosnia, with his see in Sarajevo, after the retirement of Metropolitan Eugene (Letica). In keeping with the practice of the time, the appointment was confirmed by a royal decree of 7 November 1920. He continued to administer the diocese of Herzegovina until a new bishop was chosen.

In Sarajevo he quickly became beloved by the people and earned the respect of Croats and Muslims alike. When he attended the installation of a new Reis-⁠ul-⁠Ulema, the assembled Muslims gave him a standing ovation. Every Christmas he visited the Catholic Archbishop Saric to greet him for the feast.

During his tenure churches were built and consecrated at Kakanj, Breza, Mokro near Pale, Hadzici, Turbe and Kiseljak, and bells, bell towers and chapels were added elsewhere. Before the war the church of the Transfiguration was built in Novo Sarajevo and consecrated on 8 September 1940 by Patriarch Gabriel with Metropolitan Peter, Bishop Nikolai of Zica and other hierarchs.

In 1935 the diocese had 81 churches and chapels, and in that year alone three churches and two chapels were built and thirteen more repaired. He took great care of schools and catechesis and often attended religion classes in primary and secondary schools.

He succeeded in returning the seminary building at Reljevo, with its land, to the ownership of the Serbian Church. He planned to build a new seminary by the Old Church in Sarajevo and to turn Reljevo into a monastic school, but the war prevented it. An attempt to found a school of church chant also failed.

Arrest and martyrdom

When the Second World War broke out, Metropolitan Peter was advised to leave Bosnia for Serbia or Montenegro. He answered that he was the shepherd of the people, that as he had shared good times with them he must share evil ones too, and that he would stay where he belonged.

He steadfastly defended the Orthodox faith before the German Gestapo and insisted that the Church keep using the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet rather than the Latin one. A Roman Catholic priest, Bozidar Bralo, an Ustasha supporter who was their commissioner for Bosnia and Herzegovina, played a decisive part in the ban on Cyrillic and in the metropolitan's arrest.

Metropolitan Peter was arrested on 12 May 1941. He was held first in the Beledija prison in Sarajevo and three days later taken to the Kerestinec camp near Samobor, where he was given the number 29781. There his beard and hair were shaved, his vestments and episcopal insignia were taken from him, and, according to eyewitnesses, he was cruelly tortured.

He remained at Kerestinec until 15 June, when the camp was closed, and that day he was handed over to the police in Zagreb. During the night he was taken to the notorious Ustasha camp at Gospic. There he was driven into the yard in the pouring rain, beaten with rifle butts and ordered, in mockery, to preach to the Serbian prisoners as he had preached to the faithful in Sarajevo. He was made to carry logs on his back and to clean the yard.

At Gospic all trace of him is lost. On 7 July 1941 Bishop Nectarius (Krulj) of Zvornik and Tuzla informed Patriarch Gabriel, then held by the Germans in the monastery of Rakovica, of the arrest. The Synod asked Bishop Nectarius to care for the diocese of Dabar and Bosnia. The Serbian Church tried in every way to learn what had happened to the metropolitan and, if he was alive, to free him, but in vain.

Several accounts of his death have come down. According to one, he was taken from Gospic to Koprivnica and then to a hospital in Zagreb. According to another, he was taken to the Jadovno camp on Mount Velebit, killed with a hammer blow to the head and thrown into a pit. According to a third, based on the testimony of Jovo Furtula and Jovo Lubura given to the commission gathering evidence of the sufferings of the Serbs in the war, he was killed after torture at the Jasenovac camp and his body was thrown into a brick kiln.

To this day neither the place of his grave nor the exact day of his death is known. It is known only that he received the crown of martyrdom in the summer of 1941.

Glorification and veneration

In 1998 the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church numbered him among the hieromartyrs. On 27 December 2000 the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church added his name to its own calendar of saints.

Several churches are now dedicated to him, and the Metropolis of Dabar and Bosnia has established the Order of Saint Peter Zimonjic in two classes in his honour. The Serbian Church keeps his memory in September.