Consecration of the Bishop-elect Metodije of Dioclea

The Serbian Patriarch Irinej will perform the consecration of the Bishop-elect – Very Venerable Archimandrite Methodije (Ostojic) as vicar Bishop of Dioclea, in the Cathedral church of the Resurrection of Christ in Podgorica, on July 22 2018.

The welcoming of His Holiness Patriarch will take place the day before, on July 21, 2018 at 18:30, in front of the Resurrection Cathedral church in Podgorica, after which a festive vigil service will be served. Archimandrite of the Cetinje Monastery, Archimandrite Metodije (Ostojic) was elected Vicar Bishop of Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro-Coastland, with the title Bishop of Dioclea at the regular convocation of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2018.

Biography of the Bishop-elect Metodije (Ostojic)

Archimandrite Metodije (baptismal name Ljubisa) Ostojic was born in Sarajevo on April 1, 1976, as the third child of Orthodox parents Milinka and Dragica (born Milicevic). He finished the eight-year school and first two classes of the high school in Sarajevo, BH, from where he and his family due to civil war conflicts moved to Podgorica, Montenegro.

The other two classes of the high school he finished in Podgorica. During his stay in Sarajevo he finished elementary music school. After graduating from the high school in 1994, he immatriculated the Faculty of Economics at the University in Podgorica, where he graduated in 2001. In 2002 he came to the Cetinje Monastery, where he was tonsured on the eve of feast-day of Sts. Peter and Paul, on July 11, 2004, and got the monastic name Metodije (according to St. Methodius the Slav Enlightener.

Monk Metodije was ordained by Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegrin-Coastlands as hierodeacon in the church dedicated to this feast at Zabljak, Montenegro (from where his family descends) on the feast-day of the Transfiguration of the Lord in 2005. He received priestly ordination in the Cetinje monastery on Easter in 2008.  A year later, on November 22, 2009, he was elevated to the rank of a protosyncell in the monastery of Slanci near Belgrade by Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro-Coastlands, with whose blessing he assisted, since the end of 2007, the Primate of the Serbian Church, Pavle, during his stay at a Belgrade hospital, and performed this obedience until the repose of the saintly Patriarch in November 2009.

As a principal of the Cetinje monastery he was appointed on February 1, 2010, and was promoted into the degree of an Archimandrite in the Cetinje monastery on the feast-day of Sts. Peter and Paul in 2013. In that same year he graduated from the Orthodox Theological Faculty of St. Basil of Ostrog in Foca, University of East Sarajevo, with the diploma paper on the educational role of monasticism.

At the Orthodox Theological Faculty of the University of Belgrade he defended, in 2015, his  post-diploma research-work on Mitropolitan Vavila of Zeta (1494-1520) and his contribution to Serbian spirituality and culture.

Since 2012 he has been a member of the Patriarchate Board of the Serbian Orthodox Church on behalf of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro-Coastlands. He is also a member of the Diocesan Council and the Diocesan Board of the Metropolitanate of Montenegro-Coastlands.

Archimandrite Metodije spent an academic year 2016/17 at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, studying Greek, with the aim of starting doctoral studies at the Theological Faculty of this University.

Source: Metropolitanate of Montenegro-Coastlands