04 — The Bogomoljci Movement
The lay religious revival of the God-Worshippers (bogomoljci) that emerged in Serbia around and after the First World War, and Nikolai’s central role in sheltering, blessing, and leading it — one of the most significant popular renewals in modern Serbian Orthodoxy.
This section treats the movement that, more than any office he held, made Nikolai a shaper of Serbian religious life at the grassroots. The Bogomoljci were lay brotherhoods and sisterhoods of intensified prayer, fasting, frequent communion, and lay preaching, drawing on folk piety and (the scholarship notes) on the influence of Protestant pietism among the Serbian peasantry. Nikolai won the Church’s acceptance of the movement and became its recognized patron and leader; through it he formed a generation of devout laity and future clergy — St. Justin (Popović) among those close to its milieu.
Files
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| the-god-worshippers.md | The origins, practices, and social character of the bogomoljci; Nikolai’s role in blessing and organizing them |
| spiritual-renewal-in-serbia.md | The movement’s influence on Serbian Orthodoxy, its relation to monastic renewal, and its complex legacy |
See Also
- 03 — The Preacher and Poet — the devotional writing that served the revival
- St. Justin (Popović) — the disciple formed in the same devout milieu