RADOVANČEVIĆ: WE NOW CELEBRATE MY GRANDFATHER AS A SAINT, SORROW HAS BECOME JOY

BELGRADE, MAY 23 /SRNA/ - The head priest of the St. Nicholas Church in South Milwaukee, Nikola Radovančević, traveled from far-away America where he was born, coming for the first time to the small Drvar village of Trubar to prayerfully celebrate the Holy Hieromartyr Ilija of Trubar, his maternal grandfather, together with the parishioners.

Radovančević told SRNA that it is a unique feeling to serve in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God, where 84 years ago his grandfather served liturgies and spread the faith of Christ, for which he was martyred. "Mom always spoke of the great love she felt from her father, but that experience was something sad and difficult, and we all carried it. In the West, everything goes nicely, we had no problems or major crises, but there was always something missing in our hearts," stated Radovančević. He emphasized that now, after coming to his mother's homeland to venerate his saintly grandfather, everything has changed. "When we were in Trubar, when we were at the liturgy in Drvar, singing the first songs, troparia, kontakia, and stichera for the Holy Hieromartyr Ilija, my grandfather, everything that was dark became light, everything that was heavy became light [burden lifted]. That is how we feel now," pointed out Radovančević. He said that everyone in life seeks justice, but it will not come from the world, but from the Lord, which was also shown in the case of his grandfather. "What is justice? Is it that everyone who did that to him is imprisoned and killed? No, that is not our faith. We do not live like that! We know that God loves us all. We pray to God for everyone. Only God can gather the people and only God can transform, as well as our Orthodox Church," indicated Radovančević. He stated that, as a parish priest in the church in Milwaukee, he tries to serve in Serbian as much as possible so that young Serbs can better learn their language. "I try to serve half in Serbian, half in English, so as not to lose my roots and language, because language is not some stick to beat the youth who do not know it. It is the key with which we enter our culture, faith, history, and that is how we should use the language. Thank God, now quite a few Americans are also converting to Orthodoxy here," said Radovančević. He noted that he received a blessing to travel because of the canonization, and that upon his return he will probably be assigned a new parish. "Now I am in the brotherhood, in the community in Milwaukee. I serve there and I was born there, baptized there, ordained there, and that means a lot, but in the end, God will place me where I am needed, just as He brought me now to Trubar and Drvar," highlighted Radovančević. The parish priest of Trubar, Ilija Rodić /1900-1942/, suffered martyrdom on Easter 1942 at the hands of the Partisans. The Assembly of the Serbian Orthodox Church canonized him at the Assembly in 2025. The first liturgical celebration of the Holy Hieromartyr Ilija of Trubar was held on the day of his prayerful memorial, May 9, in the Temple of Saint Sava in Drvar. The following day, he was prayerfully celebrated in the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God in his native Trubar, where the few remaining Serbs preserve the Orthodox faith and the memory of him.