The Charge of Antisemitism

The central and genuinely contested question about St. Nikolai: whether, and in what sense, he was antisemitic. This is the collection’s both-sides flagship, written to METHODOLOGY §4. It sets out the incriminating texts and the critics’ case at full strength, then the defenders’ case at full strength, then the disputed rescue claim and the Yad Vashem question, and it does not adjudicate. Both files in this section should be read together.

Tradition: Serbian Orthodox (glorified 2003)

The Question, Stated Fairly

The charge is that Nikolai Velimirović held and propagated antisemitic views — that he portrayed Jews as Christ-killers and enemies of God, blamed them for the ills of modern civilization in a conspiratorial idiom, and expressed sympathy in the 1930s for aspects of Nazism, and that the Serbian Orthodox Church, in glorifying him in 2003, has repressed or reframed this record rather than confronting it. The counter-position is that Nikolai’s hard words about Jews belong to a traditional Christian anti-Judaism (theological, not racial) rather than to modern racial antisemitism; that his most incriminating text is of contested authorship (see Words to the Serbian People); that his personal record — deported to Dachau by the Nazis, and credited by at least one testimony with sheltering a Jewish family — is inconsistent with racial antisemitism; and that the charge has been weaponized in post-Yugoslav politics.

Both positions are held by serious people, and this file gives each its strongest form. It does not tell the reader which is correct.

The Incriminating Record (the Critics’ Case)

The critics’ case does not rest on a single text. It assembles a pattern across three decades of securely and less securely attributed material.

The 1927 sermon. In a 1927 sermon Nikolai spoke of the Jewish leaders at the Crucifixion as “wolves” driven by a “god-hating nationalism,” describing them as acting for “the Semitic race” in the interest of their nation — language that the Belgrade rabbi Dr. Isak Alkalaj publicly protested at the time as a revival of dangerous themes and a potential incitement against Serbian Jews (“Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović and Charges of Anti-Semitism,” East-West Church Report). That a contemporary rabbi objected in 1927 is significant: it shows the material was heard as antisemitic in its own moment, not only by later readers.

The 1935 “Nationalism of St. Sava” speech and the reference to Hitler. In a 1935 address on the “Nationalism of St. Sava,” Nikolai praised a Serbian Orthodox religious nationalism — and, critics note, included an affirmative reference to Adolf Hitler, presenting the German leader approvingly as one who had grasped the value of a national-religious idea, at a date (1935) when the character of the Nazi regime was already visible (Jovan Byford, Denial and Repression of Antisemitism, CEU Press, 2008; East-West Church Report, noting the “affirmative reference to the German Fuhrer” in a 1935 speech). Critics also point to Nikolai’s association with the Serbian fascist and Nazi-collaborator Dimitrije Ljotić, whom he did not repudiate, and to a medal awarded by Hitler in the mid-1930s in recognition of Nikolai’s role in restoring a German First World War military cemetery at Bitola (Bitolj) (East-West Church Report; “Nikolaj Velimirović,” Wikipedia).

A 1936 speech is cited as warning of a “bloody Jewish Judaism” and of Jews “working slyly and cleverly on the destruction of faith” (East-West Church Report).

The 1944 text. Finally, Words to the Serbian People Through the Dungeon Window contains the most extreme passages — Jews as “worse enemies of God than the godless Pilate,” taught by the Devil to fight “the sons of Christ,” and the author of “all modern ideas” (democracy, socialism, atheism, communism, and the rest) identified as “Jews, or rather their father, the Devil” (East-West Church Report; Byford, Denial and Repression, 2008; on this text’s contested authorship see Words to the Serbian People).

The scholar of the case. The most sustained critical treatment is Jovan Byford’s Denial and Repression of Antisemitism (CEU Press, 2008). Byford’s central argument is twofold. First, that the antisemitism in Nikolai’s writing is real, is not confined to one disputed text, and cannot be dissolved by the “anti-Judaism, not antisemitism” distinction, because passages such as the “all modern ideas … inventions of Jews … their father, the Devil” formula fuse theological anti-Judaism with a modern conspiratorial antisemitism of the classic European type. Second — and this is the distinctive thesis of his book — that the post-communist Serbian rehabilitation and 2003 canonization of Nikolai proceeded by repressing this record: by “interpretative denial,” selective quotation (“harsh words to the people of Israel” without the specifics), and above all by reframing the Dachau prison writing as divinely inspired prophecy (Bishop Amfilohije Radović’s language of Nikolai coming “face to face with the living God” at Dachau), which places the text “beyond dispute” and, Byford argues, smuggles a position once confined to the radical Christian right into the mainstream of Serbian Orthodox culture (Byford, Denial and Repression, 2008).

The Case for the Defense (the Defenders’ Case)

The defenders’ case, likewise, is not one argument but several, and each is given here at strength.

Anti-Judaism versus antisemitism. The core defense is a distinction between traditional Christian anti-Judaism — a theological polemic against Judaism as a religion and against what Christians took to be its rejection of Christ, found across the Fathers — and modern racial antisemitism, a pseudo-scientific ideology of biological race. On this view Nikolai’s hard sayings about Jews stand in the patristic line of texts such as St. John Chrysostom’s Homilies Against the Judaizers (Adversus Judaeos) — the same Chrysostom to whom Nikolai is compared as the “New Chrysostom” (see Lelić and Early Life) — and target a spiritual and religious error, not a race. Defenders note that Nikolai’s polemic is framed in theological and civilizational rather than biological terms, and argue that his real targets were secularism, materialism, communism, and the de-Christianization of Europe, of which “the Jews” functioned in his rhetoric as a theological symbol (as summarized in the East-West Church Report account of the defense; and see Sin, Suffering, and Providence).

Critics reply to this that the distinction, while real in principle, does not hold for the specific passages, which reach beyond religion to a conspiratorial account of Jews as the hidden authors of modernity — the signature of modern antisemitism, not of patristic anti-Judaism (Byford, Denial and Repression, 2008). The collection notes the rejoinder and does not settle it.

The contested authorship of the worst text. Defenders point to the textual-critical case (Srećko Petrović, Philotheos 2020) that Words to the Serbian People — the source of the most extreme passages — is of uncertain authorship and integrity, first published in 1985, thirty years after Nikolai’s death, in the diaspora, with an untransparent relation to any manuscript (see Words to the Serbian People). If the worst passages cannot be securely attributed to Nikolai in the form printed, the defenders argue, the case against him is materially weakened. (Critics respond, as above, that the antisemitic strand is present also in securely attributed texts of 1927 and the 1930s, so the charge does not depend on the disputed book alone.)

Dachau. Defenders stress that Nikolai was arrested by the Germans in 1941 and deported to the Dachau concentration camp in 1944 (see Imprisonment in Dachau) — that a man imprisoned by the Nazis as an enemy cannot be assimilated to them, and that his personal suffering at their hands “precludes alignment with racial antisemitism” (East-West Church Report). Critics reply that theological/cultural antisemitism and imprisonment as a Serbian patriot are not mutually exclusive, and that the Ehrenhäftling conditions complicate the “martyr” framing (see Imprisonment in Dachau).

Political weaponization. Defenders (and some neutral observers) note that the charge of antisemitism against Nikolai has been deployed in the bitter memory-politics of post-Yugoslav Serbia — that he was branded a “traitor” by the communist regime for reasons having nothing to do with Jews, and that some later invocations of the antisemitism charge serve present political purposes. This is a point about the use of the charge, not about its truth, and it cuts both ways: Byford’s book is precisely an argument that the defense of Nikolai has also been politically motivated and has repressed the record (Byford, Denial and Repression, 2008).

The Rescue Claim and the Yad Vashem Question (verified carefully)

One specific claim is repeatedly cited in Nikolai’s defense and must be reported precisely, because it is easily overstated.

[Disputed: the claim that Nikolai personally rescued Jews. The single specific testimony is that of Ela Trifunović (née Nayhaus), who in a letter to the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2001 stated that as a Jewish girl she had been sheltered for some eighteen months in the Ljubostinja monastery — smuggled there, guarded, and later helped to move on with false papers — in an account connected with Nikolai ("Nikolaj Velimirović," Wikipedia, summarizing the Trifunović/Nayhaus letter). This is a single testimony, given some sixty years after the events and after Nikolai's death, and critics observe that the one incident is "commonly exaggerated by pro-Velimirović groups" into evidence of a general philosemitism that the writings do not support. It is reported here as a claim, with its evidentiary limits stated, not as an established fact.]

On the specific and often-muddled “Righteous Among the Nations” question, the record must be stated flatly to avoid a false claim: Nikolai Velimirović is not listed by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. The searchable record shows no Yad Vashem recognition of him, and the Trifunović testimony — whatever its own merits — is not the same thing as, and did not result in, such a recognition. Any statement that Nikolai was “honored by Yad Vashem” or “named Righteous Among the Nations” is unsupported and should not be made (Yad Vashem, The Righteous Among the Nations database, yadvashem.org; no entry for Velimirović). The honest formulation is: one uncorroborated postwar testimony credits him with sheltering a Jewish family; he holds no Yad Vashem recognition; and critics regard the rescue claim as real-but-singular and prone to exaggeration in his defense.

Where the Matter Stands

The scholarly literature is genuinely divided in emphasis. Byford’s Denial and Repression (2008) is the standard critical study and treats the antisemitism as real and as repressed in the canonization; Petrović’s Philotheos article (2020) is the standard textual-critical challenge to the authenticity of the worst text; the East-West Church Report survey lays out the passages and both sides compactly; and a wider literature (studies of Serbian public memory, of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Holocaust, and of the Ljotić milieu) surrounds the case. What no responsible reading can do is either pretend the incriminating passages do not exist or treat the charge as a simple, closed verdict. The texts are real; their authorship is partly disputed; the anti-Judaism/antisemitism distinction is real but contested in application; the Dachau imprisonment is real but claimed by both sides; the rescue is a single uncorroborated testimony and there is no Yad Vashem recognition. This collection sets all of this out and, per METHODOLOGY §4, adjudicates none of it — venerating the saint the Church glorified while refusing to suppress the charge against him.

References

Byford, Jovan. Denial and Repression of Antisemitism: Post-Communist Remembrance of the Serbian Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović. Budapest–New York: Central European University Press, 2008. (The principal critical study: the reality and pattern of the antisemitism; the 1935 Hitler reference; the fusion of anti-Judaism and conspiratorial antisemitism; the reframing of the prison writing as prophecy; “interpretative denial” in the canonization.)
Petrović, Srećko M. “Is Nicholai Velimirovich the Author of the Book Words to the Serbian People Through the Dungeon Window?” Philotheos 20, no. 2 (2020): 260–303. (The textual-critical challenge to the authenticity and integrity of the most incriminating text.)
“Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović and Charges of Anti-Semitism.” East-West Church Report. eastwestreport.org. (The 1927 sermon and Rabbi Isak Alkalaj’s protest; the 1935 affirmative reference to Hitler; the 1936 speech; the Ljotić association and the Hitler medal; the quoted 1944 passages; the “imprisonment precludes racial antisemitism” defense.)
“Nikolaj Velimirović.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org. (The Ela Trifunović / Nayhaus 2001 rescue testimony; the Hitler medal for the Bitola cemetery; the “Nationalism of St. Sava” speech; used to locate these facts.)
Yad Vashem. The Righteous Among the Nations Database. yadvashem.org. (Verification that Nikolai Velimirović holds no “Righteous Among the Nations” recognition.)