Biography of the elected Bishop of Toplica Jerotej

Archimandrite Jerotej (born Nikola Petrovic) was born on August 15, 1971 in Sremska Mitrovica, to father Jovan and mother Ljubica.

He finished elementary school in Macvanska Mitrovica, and high school in Sremska Mitrovica. After graduating from high school in 1990, he enrolled at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade. He graduated from the Higher School of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade in 1997. After completing his military service, he joined the bortherhood of the monastery of the Holy Archangels in Kovilj in 1998. The following year, in 1999, as a novice of the monastery of the Holy Archangels, he enrolled at the Faculty of Theology of the Serbian Orthodox Church. During his studies, he received a monastic vow, on November 21, 2003, from His Grace Bishop Irinej of Backa received a monastic name Jerotej. He graduated from the Faculty of Theology of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2009.

After graduating from the Faculty of Theology, with the blessing of the Bishop Irinej of Backa went to Athens to learn Greek and study music. He studied church music in Athens for two years, and in 2011 he graduated as a church singer at the Athens Conservatory in the class of Professor Lycurgus Angelopoulos, Archon Protopsaltes of the Great church in Constantinople. He graduated as a teacher of church music in 2011 at the School of Church Music of the Archbishopric of Athens at the Church of Life-giving Spring in Athens in the class of Professor Konstantinos Angelidis. In the same year, he enrolled in postgraduate studies in church music with Professor Dr. Georgios Konstantinou at the School of Byzantine Music of the Holy Metropolis of Nicaea in Athens, which he successfully completed in 2013. Simultaneously with postgraduate studies in church music, in 2011 he enrolled in doctoral studies at the Faculty of Theology of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

He was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon by Bishop Porfirije of Jegar (current Serbian Patriarch) on June 29, 2014, and in the rank of hieromonk by Bishop Irinej of Backa on December 9, 2018, both in the Kovilj monastery. Since 2011, with the blessing of the Bishop Irinej of Backa he started the school of church chanting St. John of Damascus at the Church Municipality of Novi Sad, where he taught Church Chanting and History of Church Music, following the example of similar schools in Greece.

At the regular session of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, held from May 24 to 29, 2021, he was elected Vicar of the Serbian Patriarch with the title Bishop of Toplica.