Nikolaj Velimirović

Nikolaj Velimirović (1881–1956) was a Serbian Orthodox Christian bishop, ultraconservative anti-Semite, and anti-Communist from Yugoslavia Serbia, canonized as saint by the Serbian Orthodox Church. He was one of the masterminds behind the so-called Saint Sava-nationalist movement, a mixture of Serbian nationalism and Orthodox clericalism.

Biography

Prior to World War Two, Velimirović spoke positively about Hitler, praising his union of German nationalism and Christianity. Velimirović was also a close supporter of Dimitrije Ljotić, another anti-Semite and clerical-fascist, who would go on to collaborate with the Nazis. Nevertheless, after the Nazis occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, they put Velimirović under house arrest for reasons unknown until September 1944. He spent the next three months in the Dachau concentration camp, again for reasons unknown. He was released and brought to Slovenia at the beginning of 1945 in attempt to rally anti-communist forces in Yugoslavia to fight alongside the Nazis against Yugoslav partisans and the Red Army. Velimirović was taken prisoner liberated by the US 36th Infantry Division in Austria. As Communists took power in Yugoslavia, Velimirović couldn't go home. He found refuge in Libertyville, Illinois. He passed away in 1956.

Anti-semitism

Velimirović was an ultra-conservative and viewed scientific and technical progress as a Jewish plot against Jesus. According to him, Europe was {{quotebox|the main battlefield of the Jew and his father, the devil, against the heavenly Father and his only begotten Son. […] [Jews] first need to become legally equal with Christians in order to repress Christianity next, turn Christians into faithless, and step on their necks. All the modern European slogans have been made up by Jews, the crucifiers of Christ: democracy, strikes, socialism, atheism, tolerance of all faiths, pacifism, universal revolution, capitalism and communism... All of these are invention of the Jews and their father, the Devil.

Items listed by Velimirović as "Jewish tools against Jesus" are:

• Telescopes
• Microscopes
• Rails
• Steam engines
• Submarines
• Airplanes
• Aqueducts
• Sewerage
• Personal hygiene

Canonization

In Communist Yugoslavia, Velimirović was a taboo theme; he was seen as traitor and collaborator and stripped of his civil rights. However, during the wave of liberalization during the '80s, a pamphlet written during his captivity in Dachau and collected and printed by his cousin, a former bishop, begun to circulate. A new generation of Velimirović disciples emerged (two of them are still high officials of Serbian Orthodox Church) and sought for his political rehabilitation. His anti-Semitic views were put aside or relativized. One of his apologists said that Velimirović's negative views on Jews were "expressions of tremendous God's love" and that Velimirović's "condemns, because he loves them".

Velimirović's remains were shipped back to Serbia in 1991. Concurrently with rehabilitation, a campaign for his canonization was waged, but there was a problem - no miracle had ever been attributed to Velimirović. Pavle (Paul), the new patriarch of the SOC rejected demands for Velimirović's canonisation, reasoning that canonization should not be done as an act of vengeance against Communist mistreatment of Nikolaj. Furthermore, the patriarch also pointed that Velimirović smoked, and true saints are free of all sins.

In order to find a "miracle" that will unlock canonisation process, disciples turned to a Russian nun from the USA, who testified that Velimirović told her that he had been face-to-face with the Lord while he was in captivity in Dachau. In 2003, they finally succeeded in making Velimirović as one of the saints of the SOC.