St. Parasceva

Joyous feast! Today we celebrate the memory of St. Parasceva, better known in much of the Balkans as Petka, who lived in the 11th century. The Saint was born to a Bulgarian family in Epibata, a Thracian town near Constantinople, and at an early age was inspired by her parents' righteous way of life to serve her Lord with her entire being.

After her parents' death St. Parasceva took up the monastic life, first in nearby Constantinople and then in the region of the Jordan, growing strong in the virtues and in prayer. Years after her arrival in the Holy Land an angel appeared to St. Parasceva and commanded her to return to her hometown, where she lived another two years before falling asleep and being buried in an unmarked grave.

Many years after St. Parasceva's repose the decaying body of a sailor washed up on the nearby shores of the Marmara and was buried on top of her grave, which had been forgotten by the inhabitants of her town. That night the Saint appeared to one of the grave-diggers and a pious townswoman in dreams, commanding them to remove her incorrupt relics from beneath the sailor's tomb.

Thereafter St. Paraceva's fragrant relics were enshrined and venerated by the faithful, first in Epibata and later in Trnovo, Belgrade, and Constantinople before coming to rest in Iasi, where they remain to this day and where the Saint is venerated as the protectress of Moldavia. More on St. Paraceva's life can be found here and here. May her blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Lazar the Tsar-Martyr

Joyous feast! St. Lazar, also known as Lazarus, is remembered primarily for his leadership of the Serbian armies at the Battle of Kosovo Polje that saw the destruction of much of the Serbian nobility and the occupation of what was left of the old Serbian Empire by the Ottoman Turks. St. Lazar first rose to prominence at the court of the last Serbian emperor, Tsar Stephen Uros V, after whose death the Saint assumed leadership of what was left of the Serbian Empire with the titles prince and autocrat, hence the common references to him as also being a tsar or 'caesar.'

Although St. Lazar labored to unify and strengthen free Serbia, his defeat and martyrdom at Kosovo Polje left Serbia without strong leadership or enough troops to continue the resistance to Ottoman encroachment and thus the battle, which equally devastated both sides, led to the extension of the Turkish Yoke to Serbia.

St. Lazar's incorrupt relics were translated from a church near Kosovo Polje to the Ravanica Monastery, which he had founded during his reign, two years after the battle in 1391. When the Ottoman Turks destroyed the Ravanica Monastery in the late 1600s the Saint's relics were removed to Srem and then to Belgrade during World War II. In 1989 on the 600th anniversary of his martyrdom St. Lazar's relics were again translated, this time to their former resting place at the Ravanica Monastery.

More on St. Lazar's life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Platon of Banja Luka

Christ is risen! Joyous feast! St. Platon was a clergyman and hierarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church who served in both pre-WWI Serbia and royal Yugoslavia, eventually being elected Bishop of Banja Luka in Bosnia.

When what today is Bosnia-Herzegovina was occupied by Ustashe Croatia during World War II St. Platon was ordered to leave his diocese. He refused, however, saying that he had bound himself "to take care of [his] spiritual flock permanently and firmly, regardless of any events." The day following St. Platon's reply he was arrested by the Ustashe, taken out of the city, tortured, and martyred, with his relics eventually being recovered from the Vrbanja River and being enshrined in Banja Luka's cathedral.

The Serbian Orthodox Church formally glorified St. Platon as a new hieromartyr in 1998. More on his life can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

St. Nicholas of Libertyville

Christ is risen! Joyous feast! Today is the feast of one of North America's glorified saints, St. Nicholas (Velimirovich) of Libertyville and South Canaan. St. Nicholas (also commonly known as St. Nikolai of Zhicha or Ohrid) is often called 'the New Chrysostom' and left a rich legacy in both his native Serbian Orthodox Church in the Balkans and the USA as well as in what became the American Orthodox Church. More on his life and legacy can be found here. May his blessing and prayers be with us all!

Sandzhak Mufti Calls for Regional Autonomy

The Grand Mufti of Novi Pazar, Muamer Zukorlić, and leader of Serbia's Muslim minority in the Sandzhak region called on Muslims in Serbia to boycott school and national St. Sava celebrations on his feast day, calling the celebrations attempts at forced conversion. He is leading a push to have Sandzhak granted autonomy, saying that autonomy would protect the region's Muslim minority from the Orthodox majority while also not infringing on the rights of the region's Serbian Orthodox residents. Given recent events in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo there is an understandable reluctance on the part of Serbia to grant the region autonomy. More here.

"From Feast to Feast"

A lovely survey of Serbian customs and celebrations for the Nativity by Fr. Milovan Katanic can be found here.

Serbs Attacked in Kosovo

Serb refugees returning to their parish cemetery in Kosovo to honor their dead this past weekend were shot at by local Albanians despite supposedly being under the protection of the EU occupying forces. More here.

Metropolitan Christopher of Libertyville: Forty-Day Memorial

It's hard to believe that it's already been over forty days since Metropolitan Christopher's repose :-(. God grant his memory to be eternal!

Some pictures from the forty-day memorial held by his grave at the Libertyville Monastery can be found here.

Serbian Orthodox Church Against Pride Parade in Belgrade

The recent statement of the Serbian Orthodox Church against the upcoming Pride Parade in Belgrade is a good example of how badly misrepresented the Church of Serbia has been in Western media. I don't think anyone's surprised to find out that the Patriarchate of Pech is against the normalization of homosexuality in Serbia (what a shock indeed! ;-) ), but the fact that in its statement on Pride the Serbian Orthodox Church also spoke out against those who would violently disrupt the parade in the name of Orthodoxy is both praiseworthy and more representative of the reality of the Serbian Orthodox Church today than the image of it that is common in the West. Whether the statement will actually have any effect on the parade's protesters remains to be seen unfortunately :-/.