Rafailo Momčilović

Saint Rafailo of Šišatovac, hieromartyr (born George Momčilović, 23 April 1875 to 3 September 1941), was abbot of the Šišatovac monastery in Serbia and a painter, killed by the Ustaše in the persecution of the Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia. He was proclaimed a saint by the Holy Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 1999 and canonized in May 2000, at the Liturgy in the church of Saint Sava in Belgrade, served by Patriarch Paul of Serbia. He is commemorated on 3 September (21 August Old Style).

Childhood and formation

He was born on 23 April 1875 in the village of Deronje in Bačka, then in Austria-⁠Hungary, to Velimir and Persida. He attended primary school in his native village, and at ten his parents sent him to the Kovilj monastery. From there he moved to the Manasija monastery, where in 1896 Abbot Miron (Đorđević) tonsured him a monk with the name Rafailo; the same year Metropolitan Michael ordained him hierodeacon. He was then at the Bođani monastery, and in 1907 at the Bukovo monastery near Negotin. Alongside monastic life he perfected himself in painting, studying at Moscow (where he lived at the metochion of the Serbian Patriarchate), at Rome, Venice and Belgrade, and was a pupil of the First Serbian Drawing School of Kirilo Kutlik. He was the first in the village of Deronje to own an automobile.

The painter

At the wish of Queen Draga Obrenović he painted the iconostasis of the church at Velika Krsna (1902). He then painted iconostases at the Rakovica monastery (1905 to 1906), at Pačir and Gornji Kovilj (1908 to 1910) and at the Ružica church in Belgrade (1925 to 1926), his last work. Besides iconostases he painted a great number of icons and portraits of hierarchs, even impressionist landscapes, with which he took part in several pre-⁠war exhibitions in Yugoslavia. He gave all his earnings to the building of the church of Saint Sava in Belgrade. He also painted the church at Deronje. To his contemporaries he left three carriages full of paintings.

Martyrdom

The Second World War found him abbot of the Šišatovac monastery. On 25 August 1941 he was arrested by the Ustaše and, together with three monks of Šišatovac, sent by train to Požega, in Slavonia. On the way he was tortured in various ways and was forced to serve his own funeral service. Tortured and abused, he died on 3 September 1941 at Požega; even today it is not known where he is buried. The art historian Ugljesa Rajčević published in 1998 the monograph "Rafailo George Momčilović, Monk, Painter and Martyr", and from the following year, in the village of Deronje, an artists' colony is held every year between 25 August and 3 September, the dates of the abbot's arrest and death. In 1999 the Holy Council of Bishops proclaimed him a saint and entered him in the calendar of the Serbian Church as a hieromartyr.