07 — Émigré Years in America

Nikolai’s last decade: liberated from Dachau in 1945, he refused to return to Tito’s communist Yugoslavia, emigrated to the United States in 1946, taught in the Orthodox seminaries of the American diaspora, and died in 1956 at St. Tikhon’s Monastery in Pennsylvania. His relics were returned to his native Lelić only in 1991.

This section covers the exile. Branded a traitor by the new communist regime and unwilling to live under it, Nikolai spent his final years as a refugee teacher and elder in America, at St. Sava’s (Libertyville, Illinois), St. Vladimir’s, and St. Tikhon’s (South Canaan, Pennsylvania), where he reposed. His reburial at Lelić in 1991, as Yugoslav communism collapsed, was itself a milestone in the rehabilitation that led to his glorification in 2003.

Files

File Description
exile-and-teaching.md The refusal to return to Tito’s Yugoslavia; emigration in 1946; teaching at St. Sava’s, St. Vladimir’s, and St. Tikhon’s
repose-at-south-canaan.md His death in 1956 at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, PA; burial at Libertyville; the return of his relics to Lelić in 1991

See Also