March 18 marks 70 years since the blessed repose of Saint Nikolai Velimirović, a Serbian Orthodox hierarch whose life was defined by sacrifice, witness and devotion to the Serbian people and the Orthodox Christian faith.
He was born on 23 December 1880 in Serbia. His early education began in the family and continued at Ćelije Monastery and the grammar school in Valjevo. He later attended the St Sava Theological Seminary in Belgrade and pursued further studies at universities in Bern, Oxford and Geneva.
Monastic Calling and Episcopal Ministry
In 1909, after a miraculous recovery from dysentery, Nikolai chose the monastic life. He was ordained a priest and soon elevated to the rank of archimandrite.
In 1919, he was ordained bishop of Žiča within the Serbian Orthodox Church. During World War I, he was sent in 1915 to the United Kingdom and the United States, where he delivered numerous lectures, advocating for the unity of the Serbian people and other South Slavic nations.
He returned to Serbia in 1919 and, in 1920, was transferred to the Archbishopric of Ohrid in North Macedonia, contributing to the unification of the Serbian and Macedonian Churches. He became a renowned spiritual father and a model for many theologians and monastics, including Saints Justin Popović and Sophrony Sakharov.
Imprisonment and Canonisation
During World War II, Bishop Nikolai was arrested and tortured by Nazi forces alongside Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo V of Serbia. After the war, in 1946, he emigrated to the United States, where he taught at Orthodox seminaries.
He reposed in the Lord on 18 March 1956 at the St Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.
In 1991, 25 years after his repose, his relics were returned to Serbia and placed for veneration at the monastery he founded in his native village of Lelić.
On 19 May 2003, the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church officially canonised Bishop Nikolai of Ohrid and Žiča. In 2025, the Romanian Orthodox Church also approved his inclusion in its calendar.
