Midnight Christmas Liturgy in Saint Sava Cathedral in Belgrade

HIs Grace Bishop Stefan of Remesiana officiated the Midnight Holy Liturgy at the Saint Sava Cathedral in the Vracar district on 7 January 2020, on the feast day of the Nativity of the Lord - Christmas.

After the three-year break due to the works on the interior decoration of the Cathedral on Christmas, at midnight, the first Christmas Liturgy was celebrated. The brotherhood of the church concelebrated to the Bishop in the prayerful presence of pious faithful people. The Holy Liturgy was attended by Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Nikola Selakovic and the head of the Office for Cooperation with Churches and Religious Communities Vladimir Rogaovic, PhD.

The first issue of the journal Nicholai Studies

“Tucindan — the birthday of someone who is destined to wander around the world” (“Tucindan” — a Serbian traditional pre-holiday two days before Christmas, and here a wordplay which Velimirovich used: it could be rendered as “the day of wanderers.” In this manner, Bishop Nicholai dated a letter which he sent from Lakavana to Fr. Aleksa Todorović in Munich on January 5, 1952 — cf. CW, XIII, 687) 

On the 140th anniversary of the birth of Nicholai Velimirovich, the first issue of the journal Nicholai Studies has been published. Both printed and digital copy of the first issue of Nicholai Studies are stored in the Repository of the National Library of Serbia: http://repozitorijum.nb.rs/repozitorijum.aspx?issn=2738-1064 The journal is available online as an open-access publication: https://nicholaistudies.org/ The next issue of the journal is scheduled for the second half of the year. The next issue will be published in English and Serbian. 

The Nativity Encyclical of the Serbian Orthodox Church 2020

The Serbian Orthodox Church to her spiritual children at Christmas, 2020

The Holy Hierarchical Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church

With all the Hierarchs of the Serbian Orthodox Church, to all the clergy, monastics, and all the sons and daughters of our Holy Church: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, with the joyous Christmas greeting:

Peace from God! Christ is Born!

Christ is born, glorify Him!
Christ is come from Heaven, welcome Him!
Christ is on earth, be lifted up!
Sing unto the Lord all the earth!

With these words Saint Gregory the Theologian begins his Nativity sermon, and these same words we, sixteen centuries later, sing in our services. Sing to the Lord, all the earth, for the joy prophesied by the Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 2:2-3; 9, 6; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Ezekiel 34:23; Micah 5:2) and the righteous (Genesis 12:3; 18:15) has been fulfilled. The most difficult task of man’s life is to comprehend how that announced and then fulfilled joy is not like any earthly joy; rather it represents the very essence of life and our faith. Every earthly joy and celebration is limited by time and space, but the joy of Christmas is an event which lasts, giving meaning to all of our relationships and our whole life here and now. This joy has manifested itself, it has begun, it is already given to us according to Christ’s words: “Your joy no one will take from you.” (St. John 16:22)

New abbess of Monastery of Saint Stephen at Lipovac

On the feast of Saint Ignatius the God-bearer, January 2, 2021, His Grace Bishop Arsenije of Nis celebrated the Holy Liturgy in the monastery of St. Stephen at Lipovac, Serbia.

Archimandrite Dionisijae (Pantelic), spiritual father of that sacred monastery; archpriest Miodrag Pavlovic, hieromonk Evstatije (Babic) and deacon Djordje Filipovic concelebrated to the Bishop.

Hierarchs visited places affected by the earthquake

Hierarchs Porfirije, Gerasim and Nikodim gave words of encouragement and consolation to the victims, and agreed with the priests on the distribution of mobile homes.

On January 2, 2021, Metropolitan Porfirije of Zagreb and Ljubljana and Bishops Gerasim of Gornji Karlovac and Nikodim of Dalmatia visited the sites devastated by the earthquake that hit Croatia. The bishops visited the parish house in Petrinja, where they were greeted by priest Sasa Umicevic, that suffered so much that it had to be demolished, as well as the place where a girl Laura Cvijic died, where they prayed for the rest of her soul, but also for the souls of other earthquake victims.

Bishop Jovan of Slavonia served beside the relics of Saint Basil of Ostrog

His Grace Bishop Jovan of Slavonia celebrated the Holy Hierarchal Liturgy in the church of The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple in Gornji Ostrog on 1 January 2021, on the feast day of Saint Boniface of Tarsus.

The Bishop was concelebrated by protopresbyter-staurophor Dragan Krusic, parish priest of Niksic, and a hierodeacon Roman, co-brother of Ostrog.