Glorification 2003

In May 2003 the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church glorified Nikolai (Velimirović) as a saint — St. Nikolai of Žiča and Ohrid — completing the reversal of his communist-era condemnation. His feasts are kept on 18 March (his repose) and 3 May (the return of his relics). The glorification was itself a contested act.

Tradition: Serbian Orthodox (glorified 2003)

The Act of Glorification

On 19 May 2003 the Holy Assembly of Bishops (Sabor) of the Serbian Orthodox Church resolved to recognize Bishop Nikolai (Velimirović) of Ohrid and Žiča as a saint and to enter him in the Church’s calendar; the solemn proclamation of the glorification followed on 24 May 2003 (as reported in the Serbian Church’s acts and in the coverage of the canonization; “Nikolaj Velimirović,” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org, giving the 19 May decision and 24 May glorification; Orthodox Church in America, “Serbian Patriarchate to canonize Bishop Nicholai Velimirovic,” oca.org, reporting the canonization in advance). He was glorified as St. Nikolai of Žiča and Ohrid (also rendered St. Nikolai [Velimirović], St. Nicholas of Ohrid and Žiča).

The glorification was the culmination of a long rehabilitation. For four decades the communist Yugoslav state had branded Nikolai a traitor and a reactionary, suppressing his memory at home while the diaspora kept it alive (see Exile and Teaching). The return of his relics from Libertyville to Lelić in 1991 (see Repose at South Canaan) had already marked the reversal of the official verdict; the glorification of 2003 completed it, raising the condemned “traitor” of the communist era to the altars of the Serbian Church.

The Feasts

With the glorification, two days were fixed for St. Nikolai’s commemoration in the Serbian calendar (Serbian Times, serbiantimes.info; OrthodoxWiki, “Nicholas (Velimirović) of Žiča,” orthodoxwiki.org):

• 18 March (5 March, Old Style) — the day of his repose at St. Tikhon’s Monastery, South Canaan, PA, in 1956;
• 3 May — the commemoration of the return of his relics to Lelić in 1991.

His veneration spread rapidly beyond Serbia. Because of his years in America and his teaching at St. Sava’s, St. Vladimir’s, and St. Tikhon’s, and because of the wide circulation of his devotional writings (above all the Prologue from Ohrid and Prayers by the Lake), St. Nikolai is commemorated and beloved well beyond the Serbian Church, throughout the Orthodox diaspora and among English-speaking Orthodox Christians (see The Prologue from Ohrid and Prayers by the Lake).

What the Glorification Claims — and the Contest Over It

It is worth stating, in the spirit of this repository’s theology of canonization, what a glorification does and does not claim. When the Church glorifies a saint it recognizes and ratifies a holiness manifest in the veneration of the faithful and in the fruits of a life; it does not certify every opinion the person held or every word attributed to them, nor does it function as a historical adjudication of contested biographical questions (cf. the treatment of ecclesial reception in the repository’s methodology and in St. Xenia of Petersburg’s hagiography-vs-history flagship). On this understanding, the Serbian Church in 2003 received Nikolai as a holy hierarch, teacher, and confessor — a man of prayer, a great preacher and writer, a leader of spiritual renewal, and a prisoner of the Nazis — and glorified him as such.

But the glorification of Nikolai was not, and is not, uncontested, and honesty requires saying so plainly. [Disputed: the propriety and meaning of the 2003 glorification. (a) The Serbian Church and Nikolai's admirers regard it as the fitting recognition of an authentic and towering holiness, and read his hard sayings about Jews (where acknowledged at all) as traditional theological anti-Judaism or as belonging to a text of contested authorship, not as an obstacle to sanctity. (b) Critics — most systematically Jovan Byford, *Denial and Repression of Antisemitism*, CEU Press, 2008 — argue that the glorification proceeded precisely by *repressing* or *reframing* Nikolai's antisemitic record (through selective quotation, silence, and the recasting of his Dachau prison writing as inspired prophecy), and that the canonization thereby lent the authority of sainthood to views that ought to have been confronted. This collection reports the dispute and does not adjudicate it; the substance of the underlying charge is set out at full strength on both sides in [The Charge of Antisemitism](../06-the-controversy/the-charge-of-antisemitism.md).]

Reported Soberly

Because Nikolai was glorified within living memory, and amid genuine and ongoing controversy, this collection reports his sanctity in the register its methodology prescribes: it venerates the saint the Serbian Church has glorified, records the act and its dates accurately, and neither suppresses the controversy nor allows it to be the last word. The glorification is a fact of the Church’s life; its contested character is also a fact; and the honest course — the course of the whole collection — is to hold both. The final assessment, holding stature and controversy together, is the subject of the companion file (see Legacy and Assessment).

See Also

• Legacy and Assessment — the towering stature and the contested reception held together
• Repose at South Canaan — the 1991 reburial that preceded the glorification
• The Charge of Antisemitism — the contested record the glorification is charged with repressing
• St. Xenia of Petersburg: Hagiography vs. History — the repository’s model treatment of what glorification claims
• Orthodoxy: Church Calendar — the calendar in which the two feasts are kept

References

• “Nikolaj Velimirović.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org. (The 19 May 2003 decision of the Holy Assembly of Bishops and the 24 May 2003 glorification; the two feast-days of 18 March and 3 May; used to locate these facts.)
• Orthodox Church in America. “Serbian Patriarchate to canonize Bishop Nicholai Velimirovic, former Dean of St. Tikhon Seminary.” oca.org. (The Serbian Patriarchate’s canonization of Nikolai.)
• Serbian Times. “Today We Honor Nikolaj of Žiča.” serbiantimes.info. (The feast of the translation of the relics, 3 May.)
• “Nicholas (Velimirović) of Žiča.” OrthodoxWiki, orthodoxwiki.org. (The glorification and the feast-days.)
• 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 argument that the glorification repressed and reframed the antisemitic record.)