Justin Popovic
Encyclopedia
Saint Justin Popović (6 April 1894, Vranje
Vranje
Vranje is a city and municipality located in southern Serbia. In 2011 the city has total population of 82,782, while the urban area has 54,456...

 - 7 April 1979, Ćelije Monastery
Ćelije Monastery
The Ćelije Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery. It is located by the Gradac river, on the 6th km from the town of Valjevo, Serbia. It was founded in the late 13th century...

, Lelić
Lelić
Lelić is a village in the municipality of Valjevo, Serbia. According to the 2002 census, the village has a population of 568 people....

) was a theologian, a philosopher of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 theology, a Dostoyevski scholar, a champion of anti-communism
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...

, a writer, and a critic of the pragmatic church (celestial) life. He was formally canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church on May 2, 2010.

The early years

Archimandrite Justin was born to pious parents, Prota (Priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

) Spiridon and Protinica (Presbytera) Anastasija Popović, in Vranje
Vranje
Vranje is a city and municipality located in southern Serbia. In 2011 the city has total population of 82,782, while the urban area has 54,456...

, South Serbia, on the Feast of Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

, March 25, 1894. At baptism, he was given the name Blagoje, after the Feast of the Annunciation (Blagovest means Annunciation or Good News). He was born into a priestly family, as seven previous generations of the Popovićs (Popović in Serbian actually means "family or a son of a priest") were headed by priests.

Blagoje Popović completed the nine-years' studies at the University of Belgrade
University of Belgrade
The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...

's Faculty of Theology in 1914. In the early twentieth century the School of St. Sava in Belgrade was renowned throughout the Orthodox world as a holy place of extreme asceticism as well as of a high quality of scholarship. Some of the well-known professors were the rector, Fr. Domentian; Professor Fr. Dositheus, later a bishop; Athanas Popović; and the great ecclesiastical composer, Stevan Mokranjac. Still, one professor stood head and shoulders above the rest: the then hieromonk Nikolaj Velimirović, Ph.D., the single most influential person in his life.

World War I

During the early part of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, in autumn of 1914, Blagoje served as a student nurse primarily in South Serbia - Shkodër
Shkodër
Shkodër , is a city located on Lake of Shkoder in northwestern Albania in the District of Shkodër, of which it is the capital. It is one of the oldest and most historic towns in Albania, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Shkodër's estimated population is 90,000; if the...

, Niš
Niš
Niš is the largest city of southern Serbia and third-largest city in Serbia . According to the data from 2011, the city of Niš has a population of 177,972 inhabitants, while the city municipality has a population of 257,867. The city covers an area of about 597 km2, including the urban area,...

, Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...

, etc. Unfortunately, while in this capacity, he contracted typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...

 during the winter of 1914 and had to spend over a month in a hospital in Niš. On January 8, 1915, he resumed his duties sharing the destiny of the Serbian army, passing a path of Golgotha from Peć
Pec
Peć or Pejë is a city and municipality in north-western Kosovo and Metohija - Serbia, and the administrative centre of the homonymous district. Governor of city is Ali Berisha....

 to Shkodër
Shkodër
Shkodër , is a city located on Lake of Shkoder in northwestern Albania in the District of Shkodër, of which it is the capital. It is one of the oldest and most historic towns in Albania, as well as an important cultural and economic centre. Shkodër's estimated population is 90,000; if the...

 (along which one hundred thousand Serbian soldiers died) where on January 1, 1916 he entered the monastic order in the Orthodox cathedral of Shkodër and took the name of St. Justin, after the great Christian philosopher and martyr for Christ, St. Justin the Philosopher
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr, also known as just Saint Justin , was an early Christian apologist. Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and a dialogue survive. He is considered a saint by the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church....

.

Shortly after becoming a monk, Justin, along with several other students traveled to Petrograd, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 for a year-long study in the Orthodox Seminary there. It was here the young monk Justin first dedicated himself more fully to Orthodoxy
Orthodoxy
The word orthodox, from Greek orthos + doxa , is generally used to mean the adherence to accepted norms, more specifically to creeds, especially in religion...

 and the monastic way of life. He learned of the great Russian ascetics: St. Anthony and Theodosius
Theodosius of Kiev
Theodosius of Kiev is an 11th century saint who brought Cenobitic Monasticism to Kievan Rus' and, together with St Anthony of Kiev, founded the Kiev Caves Lavra...

 of the Caves in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....

, St. Seraphim of Sarov
Seraphim of Sarov
Saint Seraphim of Sarov , born Prokhor Moshnin , is one of the most renowned Russian monks and mystics in the Orthodox Church. He is generally considered the greatest of the 19th century startsy and, arguably, the first...

, St. Sergius of Radonezh
Sergius of Radonezh
Venerable Sergius of Radonezh , also transliterated as Sergey Radonezhsky or Serge of Radonezh, was a spiritual leader and monastic reformer of medieval Russia. Together with Venerable Seraphim of Sarov, he is one of the Russian Orthodox Church's most highly venerated saints.-Early life:The date of...

, St. John of Kronstadt
John of Kronstadt
Saint John of Kronstadt was a Russian Orthodox archpriest and member of the synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. He was a striking and somewhat unconventional figure in his personality but was deeply pious and immensely energetic...

 and others.

After his year's study and sojourn in Russia, Justin Popović entered the Theological School in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, England at the prompting of his spiritual father Nikolaj
Nikolai Velimirovic
Saint Nikolai Velimirovich of Ohrid and Žiča or Nikolaj Velimirović was bishop of Ohrid and of Žiča in the Serbian Orthodox Church, an influential theological writer and a very gifted orator, therefore also known as The New Chrysostom.His birth name was Nikola...

. Justin studied theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 in the period 1916-1926, but his doctoral thesis under the title "Filozofija i religija F.M.Dostojevskog" (The Philosophy and Religion of Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky) was not accepted due to its radical criticism of Western humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

, rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...

, Roman Catholicism, and anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism
Anthropocentrism describes the tendency for human beings to regard themselves as the central and most significant entities in the universe, or the assessment of reality through an exclusively human perspective....

.

In 1923, Fr. Justin became the editor of the Orthodox journal The Christian Life; and in this journal appeared his first doctoral dissertation, "The Philosophy and Religion of Dostoevsky," for which he was persecuted at Oxford. Together with his fellow colleagues from the Oxford University he edited the periodical The Christian Life for twenty years.

In 1926 he was promoted to the title of the Doctor of Theology at the Faculty of Theology, University in Athens (his dissertation being "Problem ličnosti i saznanja po Sv. Makariju Egipatskom" -The Problem of Personality and Cognition According to St. Macarius of Egypt). For his course on the Lives of the Saints, Justin began to translate into Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....

 the Lives of the Saints from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

, Syriac
Syriac language
Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Having first appeared as a script in the 1st century AD after being spoken as an unwritten language for five centuries, Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from...

 and Slavonic sources, as well as numerous minor works of the Fathers-homilies of John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...

, Macarius
Macarius
Macarius is a Latinized form of the Greek given name Makarios.It name may refer to:*Macarius of Egypt: Egyptian monk and hermit. Also known as Pseudo-Macarius, Macarius-Symeon, Macarius the Elder, or St...

, and Isaac the Syrian
Isaac of Armenia
Isaac or Sahak of Armenia was Catholicos of Armenia. He is sometimes known as "Isaac the Great," and as "Սահակ Պարթև / Sahak Parthev" in Armenian, owing to his Parthian origin....

. He also wrote an exquisite book, The Theory of Knowledge According to St. Isaac.

From 1930 until 1932 after a short period as Professor in the Theological Academy of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Prizren
Prizren
Prizren is a historical city located in southern Kosovo. It is the administrative center of the eponymous municipality and district.The city has a population of around 131,247 , mostly Albanians...

, he was an associate of Bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...

 Joseph (Cvijovich) of Bitola
Bitola
Bitola is a city in the southwestern part of the Republic of Macedonia. The city is an administrative, cultural, industrial, commercial, and educational centre. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba and Nidže mountains, 14 km north of the...

 and the man tasked with reorganizing the Church of the Carpatho-Russians in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

. This area had been besieged by those espousing Uniatism, where previously converted Christians of these regions started their conversion back into the Orthodox religion
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

.

In one of those fateful historical moments, fate brought St. Nikolaj Velimirovic, St. John Maximovich of Shanghai and San Francisco and the future saint Arch. Justin Popovich. together in Bitola. The young John Maximovich (a Russian of Serbian ancestry) was the assistant to Fr. Justin Popovich at the theological seminary there, while the Bishop of Ohrid
Ohrid
Ohrid is a city on the eastern shore of Lake Ohrid in the Republic of Macedonia. It has about 42,000 inhabitants, making it the seventh largest city in the country. The city is the seat of Ohrid Municipality. Ohrid is notable for having once had 365 churches, one for each day of the year and has...

 was Fr. Nikolaj Velimirovic.

Dr. Justin was chosen, in 1934, as Professor of Dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...

tics at the Theological Faculty of St. Sava in Belgrade. As the professor at the University of Belgrade
University of Belgrade
The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...

 he was one of the founders (1938) of the Serbian Philosophical Society along with a number of noted Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

 intellectuals, including Branislav Petronijević, Toma Živanović (1884–1971), Miloš Đurić (1892–1967), Prvos Slankamenac, Vladimir Dvorniković
Vladimir Dvornikovic
Vladimir Dvorniković , was a Croatian and Yugoslav philosopher, ethno-psychologist, and a strong proponent of a Yugoslav ethnicity. He was a professor at the University of Zagreb during the 1920s...

, Jelisaveta Branković, Zagorka Mićić, Kajica Milanov, Nikola Popović and others.

World War II

He was also the professor of Dogma
Dogma
Dogma is the established belief or doctrine held by a religion, or a particular group or organization. It is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioners or believers...

tics at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Belgrade from 1934 until 1945, until World War II. In 1945, within the perspective of the newly established communist and atheistic regime, the likes of a zealous Christian such as Father Justin, who was now beginning to convert the intellectuals to faith in Jesus Christ, had no place.

The Communist regime

As an ecclesiastical person and clergyman Father Justin spent 31 years in the Ćelije Monastery
Ćelije Monastery
The Ćelije Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery. It is located by the Gradac river, on the 6th km from the town of Valjevo, Serbia. It was founded in the late 13th century...

 under the continuous surveillance of the Communist Party police. Considered ineligible by the Communist party, together with a few fellow professors, he was ousted from the Faculty in 1945. The Communists limited his public appearances within monastic confines. While Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović was never allowed to return to Serbia and Yugoslavia after his deportation in the Dachau concentration camp, Fr. Justin was allowed to actively participate in the organization of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

A devoted monk and philosopher of the Eastern Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 theology, Justin Popović was a great critic of ecumenism, providing it was inclined towards relativization of the God's Truth. (John Meyendorff
John Meyendorff
John Meyendorff was a modern Orthodox scholar, writer and teacher. He was born into the Russian nobility as Ivan Feofilovich Baron von Meyendorff , but was known as Jean Meyendorff during his life in France.Fr John Meyendorff retired as Dean of St Vladimir's Seminary on June 30, 1992...

, professor of the Academy of St. Vladimir now in Scarsdale, New York
Scarsdale, New York
Scarsdale is a coterminous town and village in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the northern suburbs of New York City. The Town of Scarsdale is coextensive with the Village of Scarsdale, but the community has opted to operate solely with a village government, one of several villages...

 (associated with Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

) - and every bit as much a critic of the "Catholic novelties" and the Pope's anti-Christianity. Until the end of his life Father Justin was a dedicated creator, and it is no wonder that his work is considered as a great contribution to the Orthodox theology and he himself as the secret conscience of the Serbian Church and the entire martyr's Orthodox religion (according to John N. Karmiris, the Greek academician).

Fr. Justin fell asleep in the Lord on March 25, 1979, on his birthday, the Feast of the Annunciation
Annunciation
The Annunciation, also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary or Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the announcement by the angel Gabriel to Virgin Mary, that she would conceive and become the mother of Jesus the Son of God. Gabriel told Mary to name her...

 (April 7 by the Gregorian Calendar).

Canonization

On the April 29, 2010, Fr. Justin was canonized as a saint by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church.http://serborth.org/04292010a.html

Troparion, Tone 4

As Orthodox sweetness and divine nectar, Venerable Father
thou dost flow into the hearts of believers as a wealth:
by thy life and teachings thou didst reveal thyself to be a living book of the Spirit, most wise Justin;
therefore pray to Christ the Word
that the Word may dwell in those who honor thee.

Another Troparion, Tone 1

Let us honor with splendor the divinely inspired theologian, the wise Serb Justin, who by the scythe of the Holy Spirit hath thrashed the error of atheism and the insolence of the Latins, being a mystic of the God-man and lover of piety, crying out: Glory to Christ Who hath glorified thee, glory to Him Who hath crowned thee, glory to Him Who hath rendered thee a luminary to those who are in a state of darkness.

The most important works

  • "The Philosophy and Religion of F.M. Dostoevsky" (1923),
  • "Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church", I-III (1932, 1935, 1980),
  • "The Progress in the Death Mill" (1933),
  • "The Foundations of Theology" (1939)
  • "Dostoevsky on Europe and Slavism" (1940),
  • "Philosophical Abysses" (1957),
  • "The Man and the God-Man" (1969 in the Greek language
    Greek language
    Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

    ),
  • "Hagiographies of the Saints", I-XII (1972–1977),
  • "The Orthodox Church and Ecumenical" (1974, in the Greek and Serbian languages).

Other

  • "Praznične besede"
  • "Pashalne besede"
  • "Nedeljne besede"
  • "Svetosavlje kao filozofija života"
  • "Put Bogopoznanja"
  • "Setve i žetve"
  • "Druge besede"
  • "Akatisti"
  • "Tumačenje Sv. Jevandljeja po Mateju"
  • "Tumačenje Sv. Jevandjelj po Jovanu"
  • "Tumačenje poslanica Sv. Jovana Bogslova"
  • "Tumačenje poslanica prve i druge Korinićanima Sv. apostola Pavla"
  • "Tumačenje poslanice Efescima"
  • "Tumačenje poslanice Filipljanima i Kalošanima Sv. apostola Pavla"
  • "Tumačenje poslanice Galatima I-II"
  • "Tumačenje poslanice Solunjanica Sv. apostola Pavla"

External links

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