Vincent Krdžić

Holy Hieromartyr Vincent (Vićentije) Krdžić, in the world Vasilije Krdžić, was the third Serbian metropolitan of Skopje after the abolition of the Patriarchate of Peć. He was born on 30 January 1853 at Ušće in Serbia, and was killed by the Bulgarians at the end of 1915. The Serbian Orthodox Church glorified him as a saint in 2017, together with Hegumen Vladimir Protić, as hieromartyrs. The English source gives his commemoration as 16 May (old style) and 25 May (new style); the two dates do not match each other by the usual thirteen-⁠day difference, so the day should be checked in the Serbian calendar.

Monastic life

He finished primary school at the Studenica Monastery and the seminary in Belgrade. He was tonsured at Studenica on 16 September 1873, and on 16 December of the same year was ordained deacon by the bishop of Žiča (Užice) Vincent Krasojević, whose court deacon he was for two years. He was ordained priest on 8 September 1875 and stayed at Studenica until 1885. In 1887 Bishop Nikanor Ružičić of Žiča made him hegumen. Until 1890 (according to the Bulgarian source), or until 1900 (according to the Serbian), he was abbot of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity and Presentation at Ovčar. In 1894 he received the rank of archimandrite (the Bulgarian source gives an earlier date, 1884, for another office, but also names 1894 for his ordination as archimandrite by Bishop Sava Barać). From 1900 he was at Hilandar as a synod elder, sent by the Serbian government with three other monks to try to solve the monastery's problems.

Bishop of Skopje

After the death of Bishop Sevastijan Debeljković in 1905, who never reached Skopje, he was elected and consecrated in Constantinople bishop of Skopje, on 15 October 1905, in the patriarchal cathedral of Saint George, by Metropolitan Athanasius of Cyzicus with Metropolitans Gerasimus of Pisidia and Constantine of Ganos and Chora. He was the third Serbian bishop after the abolition of the Patriarchate of Peć. During his tenure intensive church, national and educational work continued in Macedonia. Although the threat of Bulgarian terror was always present, more and more people in Macedonia returned to the Serbian Church, leaving the Bulgarian Exarchate. Vincent played a prominent part in coordinating the action of the Serbian bands in Macedonia, in the struggle with the Bulgarian bands of the IMRO.

In 1907, among the organizers of the Serbian band action a division arose into two currents, the consular and the metropolitan. Vincent stood at the head of the metropolitan current and tried to take over entirely the direction of the revolutionary organization and of schooling in Macedonia, which until then the Serbian consuls had run. The metropolitan current had the support of the opposition press in Serbia, and in a similar way Bishop Nikifor Perić of Raška and Prizren opposed Serbian diplomacy. Toward the end of 1907 the consular current prevailed: several teachers close to Vincent were transferred, and the link between him and Nikifor Perić was prevented.

His end

At the end of 1915 Bulgaria entered the First World War on the side of Serbia's enemies, the Serbian army withdrew, and Serbia was occupied by the Germans, Austro-⁠Hungarians and Bulgarians. Vincent withdrew to Prizren, where he was arrested by the Bulgarians and sent toward Bulgaria. On the road from Ferizaj (Uroševac) to Gjilan (Gnjilane) he was robbed and killed, although accompanied by Bulgarian guards. The sources do not agree on details: the English one says only that he was killed; the Serbian one that he was robbed and burned alive; the Bulgarian one that he was robbed and killed together with his deacon Cvetko. His body was never found, but it was said to have been burned after the murder. Some English sources also give Belgrade as the place of death, which does not fit the rest of the accounts. The diocese was governed until 1918 by Neophyte of Skopje, a metropolitan of the Exarchate who had been expelled in 1913. The twenty-⁠fifth anniversary of his death was marked on 15 December 1940. Since 2017 the Serbian Orthodox Church commemorates him, together with another victim of the Bulgarians, Hegumen Vladimir Protić (1843-1915), as hieromartyrs.