Life of Saint Justin Popovich (1894-1979)

 

The divine apostle commands: Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you, and considering the outcome of their life, imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever ( Heb. 13:7–8 ).

And truly the Lord Jesus Christ , the eternal Word of God—the Logos of God, and the eternal Wisdom of God—is the same yesterday and today and forever, the same from eternity to eternity, the unchanging Only-begotten Son of God and God our Savior. As the eternal Love of God and the eternal Lover of Mankind, He created the human race in the beginning, called it from nothingness into being, and in the last times He, the same and unchanging, abounding in love and love for mankind, became incarnate of the Holy Theotokos "for us men and for our salvation." He, as the wise Solomon says, created both small and great, and cares equally for all ( Wisdom of Solomon 6:7 ), and therefore He gave prophets and righteous men in the Old Testament to teach and instruct the people of God; He chose His holy apostles and sent them into the world to preach the word of the Gospel for the salvation of every man and every creature. He continues to this day to provide and ordain teachers, mentors, fathers, and pastors in His holy Church, and through them He guides us and teaches us His divine word. They, through the Holy Spirit, bear witness to us from generation to generation about the Living and True God, about the eternal Truth and Righteousness of God, about eternal salvation and eternal life in Him—the One God and our Savior—both here on earth and in the eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

The wise Solomon prophesied and spoke of this, saying: The Wisdom of God, the Creator and Adorner of all things, is one, yet can do all things, and, remaining in itself, renews all things, and, passing from generation to generation into holy souls, prepares friends of God and prophets; for God loves no one except one who dwells in wisdom ( Wisdom 7:27-28 ). Christ the Lord, God's Power and God's Wisdom, God's Love and Love for Mankind, grants us in the world, through His Church , prophets and apostles, teachers and mentors, fathers and pastors, who by the Holy Spirit bear witness to us and preach the Word of God, testify to and confirm the Orthodox faith of God, having first experienced it themselves and realized it in their lives and deeds, in their God-pleasing asceticism, in deeds of love for man. Therefore, the testament and commandment of the holy Apostle Paul about the constant remembrance of our mentors and about the constant look at their life and imitation of their faith - for us, Orthodox Christians, is the commandment of Christ Himself, for Christ spoke through Paul, as He spoke and speaks to us: through our mentors and fathers, His faithful servants, disciples and friends.

In the ancient times of the history of the Christian Church, Christ, being the Head of His Holy Church, after the holy apostles, gave to the human race great and glorious fathers and teachers of the Church, in every generation and kind, preaching the Gospel to the human race and guiding it to salvation. Remaining steadfast in His love, He, the same One, according to His unfailing promise (see: Matthew 28:20 ), does this even now through the successors of the holy apostles and holy fathers: through the holy bishops and pastors, priests and teachers, spiritual fathers, ascetics and confessors of Orthodoxy, from the ancient holy fathers to Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Photius, Saint Sava and Saint Gregory Palamas , to Saint Mark of Ephesus and Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk , to Saints Basil of Ostrog and Nektarios of Aegina , to the new holy hieromartyrs, confessors and ascetics of the Orthodox faith and life.

Such a holy teacher and mentor, an apostolic father and patristic pastor, a Christ-loving ascetic and a spirit-bearing confessor of Christ, was the faithful servant and saint of God, Father Justin, in our day in the Holy Orthodox Church. For if anyone in our day, in accordance with the apostolic commandment, preached the word of God, lived and died worthy of the preached Gospel of salvation, then it was truly the blessedly departed Father Justin. Therefore, he remains an example and role model for us: in the word of the Gospel, in the practice of the Gospel life, in the struggle of the Orthodox faith in Christ the God-Man—the same and unchanging yesterday, today, and forever—and in every Christian struggle of holy faith and holy virtues. For, according to the wise Solomon, those who keep holy things will be sanctified ( Wisdom 6:10 ), so this faithful servant and friend of God, faithfully and holy preserving and fulfilling the greatest holy things on earth – the faith and life of the Gospel of Christ – was himself sanctified, became holy and, as such, remained a model and example given to us by God, for us to follow and imitate.

And so, fulfilling the commandment of the holy, supreme Apostle Paul, we begin here a brief exposition of the Gospel life and deeds of Father Justin, some of which are known to some, but for many, little known or unknown altogether. For we, who knew him and, though unworthy, by the boundless mercy of God and the great condescension of this blessed father were his disciples and spiritual children—and we ourselves, right up until his blessed repose in the Lord, did not fully understand who and what kind of man of God he was.

But how can one begin to describe the life of any person, any godlike human being, much less such a saint of God, without first fulfilling what Father Justin himself practiced throughout his life and advised others to do: "To approach any human being, any of God's creations, first of all with prayer, so that prayer to the Lord may mediate our approach to every being, to the holy mystery of every other soul, to every godlike person. For only through the Lord Jesus Christ invoked in prayer can one correctly and sinlessly encounter, know, and love God's creation, every godlike and Christlike human being." For this fundamental reason, our approach to the life and works of the blessedly reposed Father Justin will be—and we will strive to ensure it is—a prayerful approach. For such was his approach to us during his earthly life, and we are sure—we believe it, we know it, and we feel it—that this is how he now looks down upon us from heaven, from the Heavenly Kingdom of Christ, where prayer is eternal life and eternal breathing in the Holy Spirit and by the Holy Spirit.

Father Justin was born on the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (March 25, Old Style) in 1894 in the ancient Serbian town of Vranje to pious Orthodox parents of Serbian descent – ​​Spiridon and Anastasia. Spiridon's father (the renowned Father Alexei) was the seventh priest (and according to other sources, even the thirteenth) in the ancient Popović family, whose priestly origins are attested to by their very name. One of the long-standing priests of this family is said to have migrated from the southern regions to the area around Vranje, bringing with him his children and property in baskets on a horse . Of the priests before Father Alexei, we know the names of the witty Father Naki 4 and four others: Father Georgiy, Father Velichka, Father Mark, and Father Anthony—preserved in Father Justin's diptychs, for their grateful grandson and descendant commemorated them at daily holy liturgies. It is also known about these priests that, during the Bulgarian Exarchate, although they were pure-blooded Serbs, they were more drawn to their Greek Orthodox brethren. Therefore, the Turks called them "Grecomaniacs," as calling oneself a Serb was forbidden, especially during the Serbo-Turkish Wars, until the final liberation of Vranje and its environs on January 19, 1878.

At that time, Father Alexy was a priest in the village of Gornje Žapsko (south of Vranje, beyond Morava), home to the Monastery of St. Stephen (subordinate to the Monastery of St. Prohor of Pčinj), and a monastic school, the so-called "Psalter Theology" 5 , where Father Alexy's son, Spyridon, studied the Law of God, but only for two years, since his father then returned him home. Thus, with him, the priesthood in the Popović household was interrupted, so that Spyridon's son and Father Alexy's grandson, Blagoje (the secular name of Father Justin), could resume it and thus truly renew it. Spyridon did not lose the knowledge acquired in the monastery school and subsequently served and assisted the priests during religious rites in the church and at home, so that both he and his family preserved the sacred atmosphere of ecclesiastical piety, and in such an environment little Blagoje was born and raised.

After Vranje was liberated, Father Alexei managed to build two houses there for his sons, Spiridon and Dragutin. From that time on, his entire family moved to the city. Spiridon, who ran the farm, was an honest and pious young man and soon married an equally honest and pious girl, Anastasia, from one of the surrounding villages. However, early in their married life, their children struggled to raise themselves and continually died. Of their eight children, only three survived: first, a daughter, Stoyna (named so by agreement with Priest Kosta Jovanović, so that she would grow strong and stand, i.e., survive); then, two years her junior, Stoyadin (named for the same reason); and finally, two years younger than Stoyadin, Blagoje, named in honor of the feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on which day he was born.

There is no doubt that in Blagoje's birth on the day of the Holy Annunciation and in the fact that he remained the third living child (after him another newborn died in the family), there was an indication of the main sign under which his entire life on earth would pass: from the day of his birth, the Annunciated Blagoje lived and labored, bearing upon himself the sign of the greatest good news ever given to the human race - the Annunciation of the Incarnation of the Son of God from the Most Holy Theotokos, "for us people and for our salvation," and the Annunciation of the mystery of the Holy and Life-giving Trinity, in the name of which and in the temple in whose name little Blagoje was baptized 6 . Moved by the all-creating will of God “from non-existence to All-existence,” as he would later write in his “Dogmatics,” he was, from the day of the Holy Annunciation in 1894 until the day of the Holy Annunciation in 1979, when he left the world and moved into eternal life, an unwavering messenger, an evangelist, an unsurpassed theologian of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God – the God-man Christ – from the Holy Mother of God and the mystery of the Holy Trinity, our One Living and True God.

In the midst of his pious, Orthodox, and priestly family, young Blagoje grew up and, together with his older brother and sister, was raised only in everything that is honest and pious and pleasing to the Sweetest God. He especially learned much good from his beloved grandmother Stana (Anastasia), the widow of his late father Alexis, who lived to be 105 years old, and also from his pious mother Anastasia. Thus, in this respect, his childhood was similar to that of Saint Basil the Great , who testifies about himself (in letters 204 and 223) that he first accepted and learned the Orthodox faith and piety from his mother Emilia and his grandmother Macrina, a disciple of Saint Gregory the Wonderworker , bishop of the city of Neocaesarea, the birthplace of Saint Basil the Great . The mother and grandmother of young Blagoje did not have Saint Basil as their teacher. Gregory, but in their area was the monastery of the miracle worker of Christ, Saint Prohor of Pčinj . 7 They, like other devout residents of Vranje, often visited the monastery, bringing their children and grandchildren with them. The very name by which they still refer to Saint Prohor today testifies to the piety of these pious townspeople, 8 as well as their devotion to Saint Prohor and his monastery. They refer to him by the common name "holy father ," expressing their feelings toward him and his toward them. For the ancient Nemanjić monastery (named after the first Serbian Grand Zupan Stefan Nemanja (reigned 1168–1196), who laid the foundation for the independent Serbian state. – Translator’s note ) with its patron saint and miracle worker, Saint Prohor the Myrrh-Streaming, was the common paternal spiritual home and spiritual cradle in which many pious souls were born, or, better said, reborn, among whom was the young Blagoje Popović.

Coming to the monastery with his parents, he often witnessed miraculous healings occurring at the relics of this saint of God. Many years later, he himself told us that he witnessed the gracious healing of his mother (in 1929), who had suffered severe leg pain, and doctors had declared the illness incurable. However, when a prayer service was held before the shrine of St. Prohor of Pčinj and her leg was anointed with the healing myrrh flowing from his holy relics, this holy father healed her, and her leg became healthy . And subsequently, throughout his life and travels, a sincere and humble admirer of the holy father Prokhor Pchinsky, Blagoe-Justin, whenever possible, did not miss the opportunity to come again to the saint of his native land for veneration and blessing, and especially at that time, when, already being a university professor and at the same time a monk, he belonged to the brethren of the monastery of St. Prokhor 10 .

From his deeply religious mother, young Blagoje learned the fundamental truths of Orthodox evangelical piety—prayer and fasting. He often recounted how his mother, along with other devout residents of Vranje, observed a strict "trimiria" (fasting without food or water) each year during Great Lent , abstaining from all food and water during the first three days of Lent. Throughout his life of fasting, Father Justin not only faithfully maintained the "trimiria" but also greatly increased his ascetic efforts, as we will see from the subsequent account of his life. The deep faith and piety of Father Blagoje—Spiridon—is attested to by the words of many who knew him personally, for he was truly a man of God, in the kindness of his heart and the goodness of his soul, as well as in his God-given prudence and wisdom.

А о том, какова была мать Благое – Анастасия – оставил нам свидетельство сам ее сын. Это свидетельство, записанное спустя несколько месяцев после ее блаженного преставления, лучше привести здесь полностью. На полях своего толкования Святого Евангелия от Иоанна (в пасхальные дни 1945 г.) отец Иустин под заглавием «Физическое ощущение бессмертия» отметил следующее: «Я сам пережил это чувство возле мертвой матери. Она, любезная мне, уснула в Господе в день св. Гавриила Лесновского (15/28 января 1945 г.), в воскресенье, в 22 ч. 30 мин. Погребена на следующий день в 16 часов. По ее лицу была разлита бесконечно умилительная благость и доброта. Расставаясь с ее иссохшим от постов телом, душа оставила на ее лице свою бессмертную благость и красоту. Поистине лишь бессмертная благость и бессмертная красота могут быть так умилительны. И то, и другое преисполнено бессмертной добротой. И все это постоянно усиливало мое молитвенное состояние. Просто некое физическое ощущение бессмертия разливалось от этого по моему существу. И я сам действительно возле мертвой матери пережил самое очевидное доказательство ее бессмертия – физическое (опытное) доказательство. Это парадоксально, но по-евангельски истинно: “Зерно пшеничное, если не умрет – останется одно, а умрет – принесет много плода”. На смертном лице – такое очевидное бессмертие! Бессмертие души, бессмертие всего существа моей милой матери... И я плакал от скорби и умиления, и до сих пор те чувства обладают всем моим существом. Ее чудесное лицо было таким естественным физическим переходом в ее бессмертие. А что же я? С тех пор я всегда думаю о ней с молитвой: каждое чувство, каждая мысль о ней незаметно претворяются в умиленную молитву... Мои мысли источают слезы и преисполняются молитвами. Какое блаженство – быть человеком с ощущением, с опытным ощущением бессмертия. Это последний дар, который моя матушка, моя бессмертная дарительница оставила мне на земле... По возбужденной душе проносится сладкое дамаскиновское веяние вечной истины: “Образ есмь неизреченный Твоея славы...” Искры воскресных сил преизобильно источаются из благого и милого лица моей уснувшей матушки, чтобы в день Конечного Суда радостно слиться в свет воскресения, и тогда в вечном слиянии заблистает она – послушница Божия Анастасия-Воскресение...»

Such a son's account of his mother clearly testifies to the virtues and piety of such a mother who raised such a son. But at the same time, the very experience of immortality described speaks far more to the faith and piety of such a mother's son, Blagoe-Justin, a man who, along with St. Isaac the Syrian, testified throughout his life that immortality is nothing other than the experience of God. "To feel the Lord Jesus Christ within oneself is the same as to feel immortality, to feel oneself immortal," he wrote confessorially in his book, The Abysses of Philosophy. With a humble awareness of our sinfulness and complete unworthiness, we too can testify today that such or a similar feeling of his immortality and eternity, but to a much lesser extent due to our spiritual unworthiness, he - the blessed and immortal saint of Christ Justin - granted to us, sinners and unworthy, on the day of the Holy Annunciation of the Mother of God, at the hour of his blessed repose in the Lord and during the posthumous repose of his spirit-bearing body in the monastery church for all three days before burial.

Much more could be said about the childhood and upbringing of young Blagoje, but it is time to move on to a further description of his life. In any case, it is necessary to immediately note here the emergence of Father Justin as a very significant spiritual phenomenon in our troubled and faith-infested times. Moreover, by the miraculous and inscrutable ways of God's Providence, we can attest to his childish piety and devotion, beginning at the age of thirteen and continuing throughout his life. He himself testifies to this when he says that from the age of thirteen he began consciously reading and studying the Gospel of Christ, and with the sincerity of the holy Apostle Paul, he affirms and admits: "If I had not then encountered the face of the Lord Jesus Christ, I know not what would have become of me." One thing, however, remains certain from the very beginning to the end of the earthly life of Father Justin of Vranensko-Cheli: from his youth until he was eighty-five years old, he was a true and genuine, integral and unique God-like man, and therefore a man of faith and the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. And it seems to us now, as we try to describe his earthly life from childhood to his last day, that his entire life's journey is best summarized and expressed in the words of his beloved holy apostle, no less beloved than his irreplaceable holy apostle Paul—the holy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian: For this is the love of God, proclaims Saint Boanerges ("son of thunder," as Father Justin himself sometimes signed his name), " that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome, For everyone born of God overcomes the world; And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who overcomes the world if not the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is Jesus Christ, who came by water and blood and the Spirit—not by water only, but by water and blood, and the Spirit bears witness to Him, because the Spirit is truth ( 1 John 5:3–6 ). These holy words, in the meaning they contain, contain the entire mystery of Father Justin Popovic's life , the entire mystery of his truly human and therefore Christ-like and God-like personality. By the love of God and the observance of His commandments, he preserved the faith of Christ to the end and therefore conquered the world and is borne witness by the Spirit of Truth.

But let's return again to his childhood.

Все дети Спиридона и Анастасии закончили среднюю школу во Вране на «отлично». Стойна затем осталась дома, Стоядин поступил в городскую гимназию и по ее окончании уехал изучать право в Белград, а Благое после четырех классов, законченных в 1905 году с отличным успехом, пошел в 9-классную семинарию св. Саввы в Белграде, где учился с 1905 по 1914 год 11 . И для юного Благое, и для его родителей его поступление в семинарию решилось «как-то само собой», как об этом говорила его родная сестра, что означает, что его воля и воля родителей здесь взаимно сошлись. Поступить в Белградскую Свято-Саввскую семинарию в то время было нелегко, так как из нескольких тысяч кандидатов принимали лишь около ста, а потому приемные экзамены были сложными. Благое эти экзамены сдал на «отлично» и был также отличником на всех курсах. They lived at the Saint Sava Seminary like brothers, like a family. The professors, among whom Father Nikolai Velimirovich , then a hieromonk and doctor of philosophy and theology , was the most significant mentor and tutor for the young and gifted Blagoje and other students. They taught and mentored the young theologians. The students, in turn, had their own literary and spiritual brotherhoods, where they helped each other acquire knowledge, grow spiritually, and strengthen themselves in the Orthodox faith and piety . Father Justin himself later recounted that these student brotherhoods, especially the personalities of certain, more spiritually experienced seminarians, greatly contributed to his spiritual awakening and development. Therefore, until the end of his life, he remained grateful to these older seminarians and constantly remembered them in prayer, especially at the holy liturgies.

In these literary fraternities, the young Blagoje shone with his eloquence and style, his prudence, and, even then, his excellent knowledge of world literature and its problems. He was generally beloved by his comrades, many of whom called him "brother," as evidenced by a number of surviving photographs and notes from his friends. But the young Blagoje was more than just a cheerful and kind friend. Even then, not earthly or temporary, but eternal sorrows and aspirations occupied this soul, thirsting for God . It was precisely during these young seminary years, at the age of fourteen, that he began to regularly read the Holy Gospel (apparently, from then on, he established a rule for himself and others who wished to do so: to read three chapters of the New Testament every day; he maintained this rule until the end of his life). It was a time of conscious youthful awakening to the mystery of life and the meaning of existence, when young Blagoje, like the youth in the Gospel, posed the most serious question: how to acquire eternal life? He returned to this fundamental Gospel question (see: Matthew 19:16 ; Mark 10:17 ) repeatedly throughout his life, especially at meetings and in conversations with young people and students. He would say to them then: "No one has ever posed such an important and fateful question to the Lord Jesus Christ as this youth in the Gospel." Therefore, he always sincerely loved youth and young souls and devoted much of his free time and love to them, both as a professor and later as a spiritual father. Thus, Blagoje's conscious interest in the holy and living word of God in Holy Scripture went beyond the scope of seminary subjects and examination requirements; For him, it was a search for daily bread for life and struggles, a search for an answer and spiritual food for his soul, hungering and thirsting for God, hungering and thirsting for the fullness and meaning of life both here on earth and in eternity. About what the living and active word of God meant and represented to him personally, which is sharper than any two-edged sword: it pierces even to the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart ( Heb. 4:12) .), - all his subsequent exploits, and his entire ascetic and theological life, testify to us. That the holy and Spirit-inspired word of the Gospel, the word of truth and eternal salvation, was truly so significant both in his youth and later for the God-loving and Christ-loving Blagoe-Justin, is also evidenced by the fact that he - by nature exceptionally gifted with an extraordinary gift of reason and discernment, rare and so multifaceted and multi-sensitive, and therefore at times a bitter Solomonic gift of wisdom - mercilessly submitted all the thoughts and thoughts of his heart and mind to the judgment of the truth and wisdom of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life, dwelling in the Orthodox Church of Christ, to the judgment of living Tradition and ecclesiastical experience, only partially recorded in Holy Scripture . This is again evidenced to us by all his notes, beginning with the surviving seminary notebooks and leaflets and ending with his last major published and unpublished works. Father Justin simply grew up, lived, and breathed the Gospel and Holy Scripture. Perhaps this explains one of the secrets of his special love for St. John Chrysostom and the holy Apostle Paul.

It was during this time, during his seminary years, that he developed a keen interest in the problems of world literature and philosophy, particularly the profound questions addressed in the works of the great Slavic Orthodox writer Dostoevsky. It must be said right away that in this regard, Father Justin was similar to the great fathers of the Orthodox Church, especially the holy martyr Justin the Philosopher , St. Basil the Great , and St. Gregory the Theologian . These saints, who in their time had studied Greek literature and philosophy better than others, in fact came to know the insignificance and vanity of human wisdom without Christ, they felt the painful and hopeless situation, the weakness of the human being, its inability to reach the ultimate truth, the meaning of this life and the existence of all that exists, and therefore they even more zealously surrendered and dedicated themselves to Christ and began to testify and preach, to explain with divine wisdom and theologically interpret to the whole world and to all people the only and irreplaceable Truth of the Gospel of Christ as science and wisdom, the only saving truth for man. Looking up to these holy fathers and following their path in our time, Father Justin in his youth also carefully studied worldly wisdom and philosophy according to human tradition (cf. Col. 2:8 ), both classical Greek and modern, contemporary, European, and Slavic. Therefore, in this regard, too, he was a comprehensively educated man, gifted by nature, as is rarely the case these days. A profoundly philosophical and comprehensively developed (gifted) man, sensitive and responsive to all eternal problems, he sensed and understood all the mysteries and labyrinths of the human spirit and being in this world and in this life. Yet, in all the paths and forks of the human spirit and thought, as he himself said, like the holy fathers, he remained like a holy and God-wise philosopher— that is, he was a faithful and insatiable lover of true and enduring wisdom. For, possessing a sincerity merciless toward himself, a soul that loved the truth, sought God, and thirsted for Christ, by the gift of God's grace, he set himself, from the very beginning of his life, on the true and only path of salvation—the path of Truth itself, which leads and introduces one to Eternal Life. Such is only the Lord Christ, the God-Man—the Way, the Truth , and the Life, the only Lover of Mankind and the only Savior of man on earth and in Heaven, in temporal and eternal life. From this, such a fiery love for the Lord Christ was kindled in the young Blagoy that it burned unquenchably in his heart until the last breath of his earthly life. We find wondrous confessions and testimonies of this boundless love for the Lord Christ in all his works and writings, but we saw and experienced this love for Christ incomparably more within himself, during his life's journey and struggles.

The young Blagoje, and later the young monk Justin,'s interest in Dostoevsky and other outstanding thinkers who attempted to resolve tragic human problems arose primarily from his own inner impulses. In a certain sense, Dostoevsky was truly his unique "teacher and tormentor," as he himself put it, and this was precisely because both encountered and grappled with the same eternal problems, and both found, discovered, and experienced the solution to their tormenting questions only in Christ, discovering the only saving escape from all the hopeless situations and tragedies of human life. Father Justin experienced Dostoevsky’s human drama as his own, that is, as the inevitable and necessary drama of every more or less profound and sincere human being, and since Dostoevsky followed the Lord Christ as a kind of modern Orthodox prophet and apostle, the young Blagoe, in the same sense, followed Dostoevsky, more as his companion on the path to eternal Emmaus, for on this path a person is inevitably met and accompanied by the Good and Resurrected Lord Jesus Christ, as once with Luke and Cleopas, and is revealed to him in the burning of the heart with faith and love and in the breaking of the bread of life and immortal meaning 15 .

However, it would be a mistake to overestimate Dostoevsky's influence on the young Blagoe-Justin, as well as the influence of any other world writer, philosopher, or theologian (such as Father Pavel Florensky). This is simply because we know for certain and certain that he had a far more powerful, decisive, and lasting influence on his personality, from the days of his theological youth until the end of his life—an influence that should not even be called influence, but rather spiritual parenting and birth, spiritual rebirth and formation, an education in the image and likeness of Christ, similar to that of which the Apostle Paul spoke to his spiritual children: " My little children, for whom I travail in birth again until Christ is formed in you!" ( Gal. 4:19 ). This is the influence and guidance of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, especially St. John Chrysostom , St. Macarius of Egypt , Sts. Athanasius and Basil the Great, St. Isaac the Syrian , and Simeon the New Theologian . For Blagoveshchensk-Justin, they, along with all the other saints of God, were constant and daily guides and teachers, in no way less than the holy apostles and evangelists, whose lives and labors in Christ he read daily in Holy Scripture. These saints were the living personification of Christ; they bore and manifested the life of Christ and His image in their souls, in all their life experiences and labors. In this way, they revealed and demonstrated to every sincere human being that the one and only mystery of the human person is the God-Man Jesus Christ. Therefore, with his whole heart yearning for God, his whole soul, his whole being striving for Christ, the young Blagoje followed them, for in them he found and discovered the all-precious and ever-living image of Christ. "In every saint," he would write a little later (in the preface to the Life of Saint Sava—a figure who also held defining significance for him), "the Lord Jesus Christ is everything—in his soul, in his conscience, in his heart, in his life, and in his works. This is the psychology and ontology of holiness in general and of each saint individually. Hence (he further adds for himself), "today's Christian can be a true Christian only if he is guided by the saints day after day."

The young and Christ-loving Blagoje, like the later monk Justin, truly devoted himself entirely to the daily guidance of Christ's saints, especially and exclusively to Saint John Chrysostom , whom he loved extraordinarily from childhood and to whom, as a youth, he constantly prayed with sincerity and tenderness. Here are just a few of his prayers to Saint Chrysostom, imbued with a feeling of love: "I feel a kind of merciful closeness of Saint Chrysostom to me, a sinner. My soul breaks out to him in prayer: O, pray to me with your prayerfulness, grant me to struggle in your ascetic labors. The silence of heaven flows through my soul and joy embraces me, for I have Saint Chrysostom" (diary entry, 1923). Or this: "Dear Father Chrysostom, every thought of you is a feast for me, and joy for me, and paradise, and rapture, and help, and healing, and resurrection... Saint Chrysostom is the eternal dawn of my soul and of the entire Orthodox Church. He is the most beloved mediator; he is the most eloquent, God-given tongue of earth to heaven, through which earth expresses to heaven its sighs, its sorrows, its hopes, its prayers." There are undoubtedly some hidden mysteries in the life of Father Justin, in his relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ, mediated by the Most Holy Theotokos and Saint John Chrysostom. (And St. Sava of Serbia , when he was still young, after the Most Holy Theotokos, loved St. Chrysostom most of all and was the first to build a church to him; in the same way, Father Justin built a church to St. Chrysostom, or more precisely, to the Lord Jesus Christ, Who lived in this saint and acted and spoke through him.) The appearance of St. Chrysostom to Father Justin in a dream, which happened many years later, tells us part of that inner spiritual and hierarchical secret; a note about this has remained for us (in his personal Small Trebnik) as Father Justin’s personal testimony: “On the eve of the holy prophet Jeremiah, May 1/14, 1955, at midnight in Leskovets I saw in a dream: St. Chrysostom in marvelous golden bishop’s vestments, with a luxurious golden Gospel in his hands, is coming to me; I hurried to meet him, fell at his feet and kissed his feet and the edges of his garment; he placed the bishop's orarion on my head, placed the Holy Gospel on top of it and read. When he finished reading, I joyfully asked him what he had read. He answered: "From my Euchologion." Tenderness, inexpressible joy in my soul. I woke up in such a mood. And for a long time I was possessed by joyful admiration and inexpressible tenderness. " 16

Thus, this God-thirsty lover of Christ, before all other mentors and teachers, was guided, enlightened, and instructed, and finally led to Christ God and dedicated to Him by the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church, the saints of God. He therefore had such love and respect for them that he dedicated his entire life to them, studying and preaching their faith, experience, and good news of Christ the God-Man, describing and translating their lives and deeds, and in general, their God-given Orthodox scholarship and theology. It was precisely from them, above all others, that he took his example, and under their spiritual influence and guidance, he grew and developed. Therefore, he became close to them, like them, for even in his youth he entered into a grace-filled prayerful union with them and from then on lived his entire life together "with all the saints," as he constantly spoke, commanded, and testified to all with the Apostle Paul (see Eph. 3:18 ) .

This union with the saints of Christ, and through them with the Lord Jesus Christ, was realized much more clearly and definitely by the young Blagoje later, during certain events that occurred while he was completing his studies at the seminary. These events may have been decisive for his life's path, although, more accurately, they merely facilitated the realization of what he himself strove for and what he hid in the depths of his soul. For although God speaks to people through events , the defining element in the life and history of each person is the inner mystery of each individual, known only to the Omniscient Spirit of God and, to some extent, to the human spirit.

Blagoje was a lively and spirited boy. He was active and agile not only as a child but remained so until the end of his life. As a child, as his school friends recount, he ran as fast as a hare, outrunning his comrades. As a seminary teacher, he walked down the corridors as if barely touching the ground and flew into class swiftly, as if on wings . [18 ] As a monk, he prostrated himself thousands of times without pause or fatigue. And even in old age, right up until the last years before his death , he remained lively and vigorous, quick in his movements and prostrations, even when he fasted for days and was weakened by long periods of fasting.

The vivacity of his spirit, a certain constant inner youth, was reflected in his behavior throughout his life. So nimble and spirited, Blagoe, like all children in the world, sometimes played pranks in his youth, but always with innocence and good nature. He could get angry, and occasionally quarreled, but these were brief. He was always the first to quickly overcome his composure and ask forgiveness from a friend, even if he was not at fault.

He was handsome and graceful in appearance, always neat and clean—his nobility of soul was reflected in his appearance. Many girls in his youth in Vrana wanted him to ask for their hand in marriage, and one of them, very beautiful and wealthy, even insisted through her parents and his that she marry him. This was before he graduated from seminary, so Blagoje's parents began to consider their son's marriage as soon as he completed his studies. Blagoje, both as a youth and later as an adult, a monk and a spiritual father, was always kind to everyone: he approached every creature and God's creation—from a flower and an ant to a human being and a cherub—with sincerity and love. Such an attitude toward all things likely inspired in this girl certain hopes for love and marriage with him. However, the Lord kindled a different love in the heart of young Blagoje, a love for ascetic life and virginity, and he harbored within himself the desire to embark on the monastic path, like the hosts of holy virgins and ascetics. The tragic death of his brother Stoyadin , which occurred at this time, finally determined his choice , confirming his secret desire, hitherto hidden in the heart of this Christ-loving youth: the eighteen-year-old Blagoje then openly declared to everyone that he would dedicate his life to Christ as a monk, in order to unite more closely with Him and thus be as close as possible to his brother. He never wavered in this firm decision.

When Blagoje's parents learned of his firm resolve to become a monk, especially when he decided to take the monastic vows immediately after completing his final year of seminary in June 1914, they did everything possible to dissuade him. They went to the Bishop of Niš and wrote a letter to Metropolitan Dimitrije of Belgrade, asking and begging both of them to prevent Blagoje from taking the monastic vows. The Metropolitan promised this to his parents, but since Sister Stojna was getting married at the time, in August 1914, the tonsure never took place. Soon after, the Austro-Hungarian War against Serbia began, meaning World War I, and Blagoje's peers were mobilized into the army. As a seminary graduate, he and his classmates were assigned to a medical company at a military hospital in Niš. As soon as his military service began, he wrote a lengthy and touching letter to his parents from the Niš military camp, informing them of his firm resolve to live only for Christ and asking for their blessing to take monastic vows. The God-fearing Blagoje loved his parents dearly and did not want to upset them again so soon after his brother's death. In response, his parents urgently sent his sister and brother-in-law to dissuade him from monasticism, which Blagoje promised them for the time being. This promise was nothing more than a temporary postponement of his tonsure, although in his heart Blagoje was already a monk of Christ. A dramatic change—a certain withdrawal and quiet prayerfulness—was also noticeable in his appearance, so that relatives and friends were astonished at what was happening to him. There are certain signs that at that time he experienced some kind of inner revolution and rebirth in his soul, which left an indelible mark on him, for from then until the end of his life he took upon himself great feats, especially fasting and prayer, as we shall see later.

The terrible military tragedy that engulfed the entire Serbian nation did not spare Blagoje. While tending to the wounded and sick in the hospital, he shared the sorrows and suffering of his people, and at the end of 1914, he himself fell ill with a terrible disease—typhus, which was then raging among the exhausted Serbian army and the long-suffering people . By the grace of God, he survived the crisis of this deadly disease and was discharged home for a few days to recover. By January 8, 1915, he was once again serving as a medic in Niš, where he remained until the Serbian army retreated to Kosovo and crossed into Albania.

While the war was being waged with varying success, the Serbian government, and especially Metropolitan Dimitrije of Belgrade, the future first Serbian Patriarch in the restored Patriarchate, intended to save young theologians from death and send them from Niš to Russia to study at theological academies, so that after the war they could be of greater benefit to their people. 22 This intention, however, was not realized at the time, as the Serbian army soon began a general retreat to the glorious and sorrowful Kosovo and further through rocky and impassable Albania to Skadar and the island of Corfu. And Blagoje Popović, with a group of his school friends and medics, traversed the thorny path from Peć to Skadar... A path that claimed the lives of approximately one hundred thousand Serbian soldiers.

After such torment and suffering at the all-Serbian Albanian Golgotha, Blagoje and his companions arrived in the city of Skadar on the eve of St. Nicholas's feast day in 1915. After resting and partially recovering, the Christ-loving Blagoje approached Metropolitan Dimitrije of Serbia, who had also left Serbia with the Serbian government and army, asking for permission to at least now take monastic vows. "For," he said, "you can freely bless me for monastic vows now: after all, my parents are not here. Who knows if we'll ever see each other again? They'll only be glad to hear that I'm alive, and they won't even ask whether I'm a monk or not." Due to his persistence, the Metropolitan gave his blessing, and Archimandrite Benjamin, the future Bishop of Braničevo, tonsured Blagoje and his friend Milan Đorđević (later Bishop Ireneus of Dalmatia) as monks on the eve of the feast of St. Basil the Great, December 31/January 1, 1915/1916, in the Orthodox church in Skadar. At the tonsure, Blagoje was named after the holy martyr Justin the Philosopher . With this name, Blagoe expressed the dual desire of his philosophic and Christ-loving soul: to be a philosopher of the Holy Spirit, like the holy philosophic saints of Christ, such as Saint Justin the Philosopher, and at the same time to be a martyr and witness of Christ in this world and life (for the Greek word μάρτυς – martyr – signifies, above all, to be a faithful witness, a witness even unto death – a witness ready to confirm his testimony with his very life). That the monk Justin truly became the philosopher Justin, that is, a lover of the true Wisdom of God – Christ the Lord – we know, and anyone who knew him closely could be convinced of this. For, being a philosophic philosopher by nature, he remained so throughout his life, always keenly aware of and imbued with the essential philosophical problems, as evidenced by his "Philosophical Chapters" and "Orthodox Philosophy of Truth." Only his philosophy, having laid humility as its foundation (as with St. Chrysostom, who says: "The foundation of our Christian philosophy is humility," for "without it, truth is blind"), surpassed philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elements of the world ( Col. 2:8 ), and became "a philosophy according to Christ"—a philosophy not according to man, but according to the God-man, pouring forth from the mind and soul into prayer and praise, into contemplation and vision of God. Therefore, he always said: "It is hard for every thought of mine that does not pour forth, that does not transform itself into prayer." And in the fact that the monk Justin became a martyr by desire and intention - true, not a martyr of blood, but a martyr of conscience,As the Holy Fathers call the monastic and ascetic life, having completely sacrificially offered himself to Christ for the sake of perfect union with Him, we are also convinced of this, and his entire self-denying feat and life before Christ, full of humility, testify to this . 23 It was not easy to offer his Good, his Justin, as a sacrifice of humility to Christ God, but he did it with joy, as the forefather Abraham sacrificed his firstborn, as the great Paul his Saul.

Soon after his tonsure, Metropolitan Dimitrije obtained the Serbian government, and the latter the Allies, to agree to send a group of young and most gifted Serbian theologians from Skadar for academic study in Russia, as the future of Serbia and its people was pressing. Indeed, in January 1916, Monk Justin, Irinej Djordjevic, Dusan (Ioan) Stojanovic, and Pavel Jevtic departed from Skadar for Petrograd. They traveled on an old, dilapidated Italian ship to Bari, then by train via Paris to London, where Hieromonk Nikolai (Velimirovich) awaited them and invited them to remain, anticipating the events already known in Russia. However, they nevertheless accepted the Metropolitan's blessing and reached Petrograd via Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In Petrograd, they enrolled in the theological academy (where Sinkel Damaskin, the future Metropolitan of Zagreb , was studying at the time ), but soon three of Justin's companions left Russia for England, while he remained there until June 1916. During this relatively short time, despite everything, he came to know and love Orthodox Russia even more deeply, no less than his homeland of Serbia or neighboring Orthodox Greece. His pan-Orthodox, catholic, and universal love for all Orthodox, especially his Russian and Greek brothers, was and remained one of his most important qualities throughout his life. Throughout his ascetic life, he prayed equally for all Orthodox, especially for his Greek and Russian brothers, without in any way diminishing his love for his Serbian people. God gave him the opportunity to know face to face both Orthodox Russia and Orthodox Greece, as we will see later, and he always humbled himself with love before the Orthodoxy of Byzantium and Holy Russia and loved his Orthodox holy Serbia in the same way.

In Russia, Father Justin had the opportunity to study not only Russian Orthodox theology, which had been at the forefront before the Revolution, and not only to read Dostoevsky and other Russian writers in the original, but above all, to get to know the Orthodox soul of the Russian people, to know its heaven and hell, as he himself later said. 25 He also had the opportunity to learn, above all, the sacred relics of the Russian soul, its saints. Undoubtedly, from that time on, he was imbued with a deep love for Saints Sergius of Radonezh, Seraphim of Sarov , John of Kronstadt , and the new confessors: Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Anthony, and others. It was already clear to him then that to know the people, their faith and soul means to know their saints, for true Orthodoxy is in holiness, in the bearing of the Spirit, in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit, which is the purpose of human life on earth, as Saint Seraphim of Sarov testified to through his own experience , having once gracefully appeared to Father Justin in one of the subsequent periods of his life 26 .

However, due to the well-known turbulent events of that time, Father Justin was unable to remain in Russia for long, and in June 1916 he left for England, where he was received by Hieromonk Nikolai and placed in one of the Oxford colleges (he lived in St. Stephen's House, a house provided for Serbian students, of whom there were many in England at the time). Here, as an extramural student, he completed eight semesters of theology (from November 1916 to May 1919), regularly passing all exams and also reading and researching extensively: this is evidenced by several surviving notebooks, as well as books he acquired or copied . 27 Upon completion of his studies, he nevertheless did not receive a diploma, since his doctoral dissertation on "The Philosophy and Religion of F. M. Dostoevsky" was not accepted for defense. And here's why.

Father Justin also traveled to other parts of England, listening to renowned professors, reading at the most renowned libraries, and especially getting to know Western Europeans themselves through direct contact, delving into their souls and philosophy of life. Penetrating the depths of European culture, with the heart and mind of an Eastern Orthodox ascetic, he could not accept it without a radical and merciless critique of its anthropocentrism and man-worship. Anyone who knew the blessedly deceased Father Justin in any sincere way, not only through his books but even more personally, could sense and understand why he so strongly and so many times emphasized the existence of a profound difference, even an irreconcilable contradiction, between the Orthodox understanding of the Gospel, the Orthodox ascetic-graceful experience and experience of Christ the God-Man, and Western humanistic, or, as he himself said, “hoministic” (from the Latin homo – “man”), culture, that is, Western anthropocentrism in its various manifestations: in science, philosophy, theology, the church, culture, civilization.

He opposed not so much Western scholarship and science as such, but its diseased, sin-infused rationalism, which corrupts man himself, solipsizes him, and confines him within himself, tying him only to this world and this life. He was no less opposed to the "mysticism" of the distant East, for it, too, is deadly to man, degenerating and corrupting him. For Father Justin, man is always a divine-human being, frankly God-like and Christ-centered; for only in the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is man truly human, realized and revealed as such. This is why this philanthropic and Christ-loving ascetic, both then and throughout his life, fought for this true man in all his unlimited and immortal, divine and divine-human dimensions and potentialities in Christ the God-Man. Therefore, he ardently opposed all humanism, even in its best manifestations, but all this in the name of God-manhood (theo-humanism), in the name of man's God-manhood. "In the name of the true man, we remain with the God-man," he would write and testify. "For the Orthodox struggle for the God-man is essentially a struggle for man," for a divine and God-human man, not alienated from himself, but elevated in Christ to the highest possible glory and dignity, blessedness and perfection.

Here, Father Justin was evidently a disciple, first and foremost, of the Apostle Paul and the Apostle John the Theologian, as well as of the holy Orthodox Fathers, whose gracious experience and teaching on the tragic hopelessness of egocentric, sin-infected, and unregenerate man he himself bitterly endured and continually endured. Just as he himself, and within himself, experienced and continually endured the gracious experience of man's healing and salvation from slavery to sin and death through the gracious rebirth, transformation, and deification in Christ the God-Man. He experienced the mystery of human salvation in Christ God not only as a correction and simple improvement of the old man—as Western Christianity , both Roman Catholic and Protestant, primarily teaches and preaches—but also as a completely new life for the new man in the God-Man. In this regard, he found in Dostoevsky only confirmation of his personal experience of man as experienced by Eastern Orthodoxy and as distorted by Western Christianity . Therefore, in the final chapter of the aforementioned dissertation on Dostoevsky, Father Justin offered a sharp critique of Western humanism and anthropocentrism, particularly Roman Catholicism. English professors demanded that he change these views, but Justin would not have been Justin if he had agreed to this. Therefore, he left Oxford without a diploma .

One event that occurred during Father Justin's stay in England best and most simply illustrates the essential difference between Western, humanistic Christianity and Orthodox Christianity—the God-man. A young Anglican monk, having met the young and unusual monk Justin, fell in love with him and became close to him. Observing his ascetic life firsthand, and especially his unceasing prayers and abundant tears—the feats that characterized Father Justin's life until the end of his earthly sojourn—he once sincerely confessed to this Orthodox ascetic in the West: "Only now have I realized that for you, repentance and faith are something different from how we understand them in the West and how we were taught. Now I see that we in the West don't know what repentance is." The Anglican monk was right. In the monk Justin, he saw something rarely seen in the West, or something that had not been seen for a long time: living faith and repentance as the foundation of the Gospel life, above all else and in everything else. For in this, as the Holy Fathers say, is contained the Holy Gospel; in this man is purified and reborn, and in him a new life is begun in the Holy Spirit. Father Justin accepted the Gospel of Christ with all seriousness and consistency: as his personal struggle, as a struggle that comes first of all from himself, for otherwise everything remains theory and science on paper. His life's ascetic rule was what St. Gregory the Theologian expressed in the following true words: "One must first purify oneself, and then teach others purity; one must first make oneself wise, and then teach others wisdom; one must first become a light, and then enlighten others; one must first draw near to God, and then bring others to Him; “You must first become a saint yourself, and then sanctify others.” Father Justin had these words written on the first page of his Gospel, which he read daily.

In the early summer of 1919, Father Justin and a group of Oxford theologians returned to their homeland, now liberated from the enemy. For the first time after long years of war and suffering, he saw his parents, no longer as Blagoje, but as Monk Justin. Still young, but too serious for his age, imbued with a sad thoughtfulness and penitential weeping, he now seemed somehow wondrous and mysterious to them. As parents, they knew his kind and tender heart, but they could not comprehend the secret of that heart. At this time, he was a constant lover of prayer and quiet tears, so much so, as his sister and niece testify, that he often retreated to his room and spent hours there in a silence they found incomprehensible. His mother and sister worried that something had happened to him, but he gave no sign and told them nothing of his inner life. However, his exploits could not go unnoticed, and his niece said about this: “He would not have been Justin if he had not bothered himself,” obviously referring to his exploits, which were then incomprehensible to her and to everyone around him.

The young monk Justin's exploits were stern and selfless, especially those of fasting and prayer. Through the exploits of purification and self-crucifixion, he offered his entire soul and body, all his spiritual and physical strength, to the Sweetest Lord Christ, as he most often called Him then, thus demonstrating his profound hunger and thirst for salvation, his thirst for the Living and True God, the only Lover of Mankind. "What are my eyes above the black abyss of this sinful life," he wrote in one of his later letters, "if they have no tears? My soul, what is my soul if it is not Christ's? For without Him, it is an immortal hell. And what is hell not where the Lord Christ is not?" Or again he would say: "My eyes, you are not mine, but the Lord's, and therefore—serve the Lord!" "My ears, my body, my conscience, my soul, my thoughts, my feelings, you are not mine, but the Lord's, and therefore – serve the Lord! Or – die a death after which there is no resurrection" 29. Through merciless, self-denying struggles, he transformed himself into a great ascetic of our time, and in our ascetic days he showed himself in everything similar to the holy fathers, ascetics, and true theologians of Christ.

Nevertheless, when Father Justin and his Oxford friends presented themselves to Metropolitan Dimitrije, then His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch, he immediately blessed them, in the autumn of that year, to travel to Orthodox Greece, "to become Orthodox there," as His Holiness put it, thereby demonstrating his lack of confidence in Western Christianity and education. Father Justin and his friends, as a recipient of a scholarship from the Holy Synod of the Serbian Church, traveled to Athens at the end of September 1919 and remained there until May 31, 1921. During this time, he studied at the Theological Faculty of the University of Athens and passed all the necessary examinations, entitling him to defend his doctoral dissertation in Orthodox theology . He now prepared his doctoral dissertation from scratch and on an even more Orthodox topic: "The Teaching of St. Macarius of Egypt on the Mystery of the Human Personality and the Mystery of Understanding It." That is, what, according to Saint Macarius, is the human personality in its fallen and sinful state, and what is it like in its reborn and graced state? What slavery is there, and what freedom is here? What impure and erroneous knowledge and self-knowledge is there, and what holy, luminous, and saving knowledge of man and God is here? When everything was completed and the necessary examinations in dogmatics and comparative theology for the dissertation defense were passed, the Holy Serbian Synod unexpectedly refused him further payment of the stipend, which was necessary for the publication of the work, and Hierodeacon Justin III was forced to immediately return to his homeland, once again without completing the work. He will finish the defense of his doctoral dissertation later (from January to June 1926) on the same topic, also in Athens, with Professor Diovuniotis, but here too temptations will await him: he will have to quickly rewrite the work, because human malice and envy stole the finished work from his desk in Sremski Karlovci, in order to hinder his further theological growth and perfection, and to deprive posterity of such God-wise and soul-beneficial books.

But, independent of his work on his doctoral dissertation in Orthodox theology, Father Justin's two-year stay in Orthodox Greece was of immense importance and benefit both to him and to the work of the Church of God in Serbia and Greece. In Athens, he came into direct contact with the Greek Orthodox people, their centuries-old piety and vibrant church life, and in this he enriched himself and his people. With his usual humility, he later told us that, while staying with a devout Greek old woman, he learned more about piety from her than from many at the university. "She," he said, "knew almost all the Lives of the Saints by heart, and I, as a monk, burned with shame and marveled at her piety." It was then that Father Justin acquired several editions of the Lives of the Saints in Athens and brought them back to Serbia, intending to use them later in his translations of the Lives of the Saints into Serbian.

In Athens, he learned about and experienced the wondrous Byzantine services in Byzantine churches filled with faithful. As a hierodeacon, he served most often and prayed most in one of these ancient Byzantine churches in the center of Athens, where Russian Orthodox brethren (mostly refugees from Russia who had arrived in Athens via Constantinople and were accepted by the Greek brethren) served.

From the day Father Justin was ordained a hierodeacon and began serving the Holy Liturgy, we can confidently say that he embarked on a path of renewing within himself that ancient, patristic, liturgical life, which is entirely and completely centered on the Holy Divine Liturgy. For, according to the Holy Fathers, the entire Christian Orthodox ethos and character of spiritual life are comprised of "prayerful concentration with piety." This concentration is not merely personal, but also the concentration (conciliarity) of all the faithful at the Holy Liturgy, in the Church as the Body of Christ. Thus, the Holy Liturgy truly becomes the heart and lungs by which the entire Church and every Christian lives and breathes. Father Justin, both then and throughout his life, prayerfully and gracefully united himself with the Holy Liturgy as the divine-human heart of the Church, and he lived and breathed it both in church and outside of it, in everyday life. Therefore, from then until the end of his life on earth, he served the Holy Liturgy with unceasing zeal and joy, which contains both the Cross and the Resurrection, which is the entire Pascha of Christ, the Cross-Resurrection; he was imbued with its spirit and exuded its fragrance .

Father Justin himself bears witness with stunning poignancy in his shorter "Prayer Diary"33 of this service in the Athenian church with his long-suffering Russian brothers, as well as of his daily and nightly prayers and tears in his cell during his entire stay in Athens . Essentially, here he noted his daily monastic rule, which he practiced day after day and night after night; he recorded the number and nature of his prayers and his well-known prayerful reflections and moods that arose during the extraordinary struggle of those days and years. This diary reveals to us the full magnitude and zeal of the God-seeking efforts of the young Hierodeacon Justin, who, both for himself and for others, undertook such prayerful and tearful struggles, so that today it no longer seems surprising to us that such an abundance of spiritual gifts and virtues subsequently shone forth within him. He then, by clear testimony, prayed day and night with tears— for everyone and everything: for his brothers in great sorrows and temptations, for all the suffering and tormented, for harlots and suicides, for those for whom no one could pray, for flowers and plants, for birds and animals, for all creatures under heaven. And he did all this, endlessly humbling himself before the Sweetest Lord Jesus, shedding quiet and abundant streams of warm tears. Although he wisely concealed all this, those around him, especially in the Russian church in Athens, noticed it and marveled at his tears and prayers, turning to him with a request to pray to God for them in their sorrows, which were then considerable. This Christ-loving and brotherly ascetic prayed even more fervently then for all of them and for each one individually, and he helped some in other ways as best he could. Only a small part of all this is recorded in the said diary.

The blessed elder never spoke to us about this "Prayer Diary," and apparently he himself never mentioned it, since this notebook was found lost among his books after his death. That he then wrote down his daily prayer rule, willingly or unwillingly leaving us a testimony of his ascetic labors, should not surprise us. He was not alone among the holy Orthodox ascetics in this. Saint Simeon the New Theologian did something similar , speaking openly of his gracious labors and experiences like no other saint before him, but always with infinite humility and self-condemnation. In modern times, similar practices have been followed by some of the holy ascetics of Optina Hermitage in Russia, as well as the holy ascetics John of Kronstadt and Silouan the Hagiorite. The prayerful Father Justin did this only at the beginning of his spiritual endeavors, and exclusively for himself, as a form of daily confession, an examination of his thoughts, and a self-examination of his conscience. He subsequently stopped keeping a diary, except to occasionally jot down certain thoughts and feelings on small slips of paper and insert them into his books and notebooks as reminders or as material for a new work he intended to write.

In all this, we must also keep in mind the extraordinary capacity for thought and the rare philosophical intuition that Father Justin possessed, often revealing to us not only the profound wisdom of Job and Solomon, but also the "vexation of spirit." Therefore, it is not surprising that he, like the wise and long-suffering Job, wanted something from these intellectual and spiritual torments of his birth, in which a new man was being born and a new spiritual mind was conceived within him, to be written down in a book, as the long-suffering Job once said: Oh, that my words were written! That they were written in a book with an iron pen and tin, that they were engraved on stone for eternity! ( Job 19:23-24 ) 34 .

Father Justin's "Prayer Diary" records many of his sorrows and griefs, but all of them were sorrows and griefs for God's sake, and they are inevitable on the journey of every God-loving soul through this sin-corrupted world, filled with the bitterness of evil and suffering, the snares and temptations of hell. Even the great Fathers of the Church did not escape this grief and sorrow, overcoming it with great difficulty. Father Justin, with his youthful innocence and sensitivity to all human illnesses and sufferings, created and exceptionally gifted by the love of God, courageously and ascetically endured the well-known law of spiritual life, according to which in this world precisely such souls are most tested and tempted, so that through long and agonizing struggles all that is alien to the love of Christ may be consumed within them. Moreover, it is also known from centuries of Orthodox experience that the feat of human salvation is a feat of daily, voluntary dying and crucifixion of the old man, so that a new man in Christ may be gradually born and grow by grace, renewed in knowledge after the image of His Creator ( Col. 3:9–10 ). This sorrowful and lengthy spiritual struggle occurs through the selfless observance of all the Gospel commandments, and is most successfully accomplished through prayerful and penitential tears, in which the old heart and old mind are burned out and melted, and a new heart and a new mind are conceived and formed, as St. Macarius of Egypt so incomparably speaks of , whose works Father Justin studied especially during his stay in Athens, both spiritual teachings and experience, and applied to himself.

It seems to us that the words of the young Father Justin, written several years later about the young monk Rastko 35 upon his departure for the Holy Mountain, could and should be applied to him and his evangelical monastic exploits: “Rastko rose up against evil in himself and in the world, against death in himself and in the world. Therefore, his entire monastic life was a ceaseless struggle with evil and death, the conquest of sin and death through prayer, fasting, vigil, tears, almsgiving, humility, meekness, love for God, brotherly love, and other evangelical virtues.” “There is no temptation or sin,” the abba would write elsewhere, “that will not burn in the prayerful fire of our soul; there is no passion that will not end in the same; there is no demon that will not be reduced to ashes in the flames of our unceasing and tearful prayer.” “I almost never came to myself,” he notes in his diary, “so as not to mourn myself, so as not to burst into tears and sobs... Through the horrors of a sin-infected life in the world, only through prayer and tears can a person break through to the Sweetest Image of Christ... Fill my heart, Lord, with Yourself, but first cleanse it of everything worldly and of all desires in general.”

Of all that has been said, one thing is certain: Father Justin's prayerful and penitential struggle during his life in Athens was exceptionally intense and comprehensive, a sure sign of the Lord's gracious visitation, as it has been upon all of God's saints, for grace and mercy are with His saints, and providence is with His elect ( Wisdom of God 4:15 ). By the unknown paths of God's all-merciful Providence, this was undoubtedly destined to come to pass, so that this rare ascetic of Christ would endure all battles and prove invincible, so that his ascetic crowns and rewards might multiply. The Lord, according to the words of the prophet, who tests the hearts and the reins ( Jer. 11:20 ), watched over His faithful servant in his exploits and struggle against sin, even to the point of bloodshed, as the holy apostle commands (see: Heb. 12:4 ) 36 , and by His grace He revealed him as a bright conqueror and a skilled keeper of the secrets of spiritual warfare, so that later, with his rich experience, he would serve others for spiritual benefit and salvation.

In one of his writings, he himself briefly noted and described the main moments and stages of this spiritual struggle, as well as its blessed and beneficial fruits, in the following stunningly true words: "For it to cease to smell of decay, how many years must a person introduce the fragrance of Heaven into the leaven of his being, how many years must he transform himself through evangelical struggles? From the dark cave of my body, I gaze upon You, Lord, and peer—and yet I cannot see. But I know, I sense, and I know that You are the only Architect, Lord, capable of constructing the eternal home of my soul. And the builders are: prayer , tears, fasting, love, humility, meekness, patience, hope, compassion... Then everything human comes into motion, into excitement, into a pleasant tremor, into creative fear. As on the sun and within it—everything is in raging chaos and storm: constant eruptions, fiery fountains, red-hot whirlwinds, kilometers-long prominences. And such a seething sun pours into our earthly world a quiet, peaceful, and life-giving light, knowing neither storm nor thunder. Christ's people, especially the saints, are similar: in a fervent prayerful rapture of love and faith, they reforge themselves and, from their turbulent experiences that connect earth with heaven, they emit quiet and calm rays, the beneficent light and gentle warmth of which humbles obstinate human hearts and tames their feral souls... Man! Heaven is the earth's covering. See how far you are given to grow in height! And to descend just as far into the depths! This is so that the height of the summit does not come into disproportion with the depth of the root." ("Down the Stormy Waterfall of Time.")

Father Justin's entire Athenian struggle, which essentially lasted until the end of his life on earth, was an outpouring and manifestation of his living faith and the boundless love he cherished for the Sweetest Lord Christ. He loved Him above all else and, for His sake, lived and died in his struggles, especially in prayer and tears. Therefore, for him, as for so many Orthodox saints, prayer was not only a search for forgiveness and salvation, but also—and far more than that—an expression and outpouring of love and love for God, as evidenced by these truly saintly words: "Lord, am I only a man to sin, and are You only God to forgive me?" Father Justin was truly an exceptionally rare lover of Christ, a true lover of God and the One Who loves mankind, and therefore all his struggles can only be explained by his love for Christ. In fact, only God's love for mankind and human love for Christ can fully explain this hidden mystery that exists between Christ and His saints in heaven and on earth.

Many years later, his school friend and close acquaintance, a native of Athens, now a professor of theology and a renowned Orthodox theologian, told us that in Athens, the young Father Justin had impressed him most because, above all, he was a man of living faith and prayer, a true evangelical. Indeed, Abba Justin's living faith and prayerfulness, his inner self-crucifixion for Christ's sake, his humility amidst the bitter mystery of the world and a life mired in sin, were reflected in his sorrowful and inspired face, both then and later. This is why his friend fell in love with him.

Father Justin's ascetic labors and virtues attracted many people to him, though some shunned him. These latter felt that he exaggerated his spiritual struggles and demands beyond measure: in their spiritual inertia, they lacked the will or zeal to follow him in asceticism. So, too, the well-known truth was repeated in him, which was confirmed in history with all of God's people, i.e., that “many are the afflictions of the righteous” in this world, for his holy life according to God is burdensome and disgusting for the people of this world. But the psychology of people who do not accept and persecute the righteous was long ago foreseen and described by the Wise Solomon in the following words: Let us lay a trap for the righteous, for he is a burden to us and opposes our deeds, reproaches us for sins against the law and reviles us for the sins of our upbringing; he declares himself to have knowledge of God and calls himself the son of the Lord; he is before us - the reproof of our thoughts. It is hard for us even to look at him; for his life is not like the life of others, and his ways are different ( Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-15 ). The fate of almost all the holy and zealous people of God in this world is such, As shown by the example of St. Chrysostom, they either awaken or irritate those around them; in any case, they do not leave them indifferent. In this sense, even during earthly life, they are a judgment on this world (see: John 3:19 ; 1 Cor. 6:2 ).

Father Justin returned from Athens to his homeland before the feast of Holy Trinity in 1921. He first visited his parents in Vrana, then visited the Patriarch in Belgrade and Sremski Karlovci. Patriarch Dimitri received him warmly, for he had always loved him as a father, and blessed him to teach at the St. Sava Seminary, which had then been moved from Belgrade to Karlovci. That summer, before assuming his teaching position, Father Justin and his friends toured several Serbian monasteries, a practice he continued to do for the rest of his life, for monasteries were always a part of his heart.

In October 1921, Father Justin began teaching at the seminary, teaching the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, and later dogmatics and patrology. His teaching and inspired interpretation of the Holy Gospel of the Savior are best evidenced by his commentaries, diligently collected and distributed by his students at that time and now partially published . 37 Before each lecture on the New Testament, he would pray warmly and tearfully, uttering the following words: "Sweetest Lord, through Your holy evangelists and apostles, fulfill the gospel for me, a sinner, and teach me what and how to say." He would pray this or a similar short prayer whenever he needed to preach in church or give a lecture on Holy Scripture or other theological subjects . 38

His teaching of dogmatics and patrology is best evidenced by his Dogmatics, which he reproduced and published extensively. His knowledge of the Holy Fathers and their divinely inspired scholarship and theology is clearly evident. What the Holy Fathers and their dogmatic theology meant to him is best expressed by the following words, which must be quoted here: "Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy through holiness (hierarchy). Holiness is life in the Holy Spirit and by the Holy Spirit. There is no Orthodoxy without holiness, without the bearing of the Spirit. In the world of human materiality, holiness is the measure of Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy is only that which comes from the Spirit-bearing hierarchs, from the Holy Fathers of the Church." Orthodox theology is the only evangelical theology, for it comes from the Holy Spirit, from the Spirit-bearing apostles and holy fathers—"theology by the Holy Spirit..." Yes, true evangelical theology comes only from the Holy Spirit, is acquired only by Him, and is created only by Him. Therefore, for us, the Orthodox Spirit-bearing Fathers of the Church are the only true theologians, the only guardians of the mystery of theology, the only teachers of the eternal truth about the Trisolar God. They are our leaders, they are the teachers of Orthodoxy, they are the trumpets of the Holy Spirit, they are the mysteries of the Holy Trinity, they are the eyes of Christ. In all this, they are both the measure and criterion of all that is Orthodox, all that is evangelical. That which is not of them, that which is not in their spirit, is un-Orthodox. Only that which can be verified by their spirit, reconciled with their teaching, is Orthodox, eternal, and in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel. Therefore, the study of the Holy Fathers is the first task of the Orthodox theologian. Here, thought is baptized in living water and flows forth into eternal life. The soul is rejuvenated, the senses become immortal, thought takes wings and, like an eagle, soars through pure heights. And it grows in Divine infinity, impelled by its own divine likeness aspiring to God.

Out of his profound love for the saints and patristic Orthodox theology, Father Justin, soon after arriving at the Karlovac Seminary, along with Hieromonk Ireneus (Đorđević), demanded, in the usual manner, that the seminary introduce the lives of the saints as a mandatory subject in the curriculum . 39 For from the very beginning, he had fought against the scholastic, lifeless, and Protestantly rationalistic method of educating young souls, and therefore demanded that Orthodox scholarship and church life be taught and studied with an Orthodox and patristic approach. Indeed, one could say that for Father Justin, true Christian scholarship and education were always linked with holiness and sainthood, and this means with asceticism and podvig. "Holiness is an asceticism, therefore enlightenment is also an asceticism." Therefore, he often encountered difficulties in the field of ecclesiastical education, encountering a clear lack of understanding from those around him, accompanied by frequent transfers from one school to another, a kind of persecution, and even neglect. But he did not waver; through his life, his teaching, his teaching, and his upbringing, he bore witness to the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and His Divine-human work of salvation, teaching, enlightenment, and transformation. Therefore, for many of his students, Father Justin was, and remains, the ideal teacher and educator at the seminary, as well as the university where he later taught.

At the seminary, Father Justin was also an educator. He trained many generations of theologians, theologians, and clergy in the evangelical Orthodox faith and directed them into church service and theological scholarship. He was not a teacher or professor of a "department," but, above all, a living and true witness of Christ, and therefore his entire life and work as a professor and educator were a "good witness" to Christ the Savior, for whom he so wonderfully ignited the love first of seminarians and then of university students. The testimonies of his dear students are countless, of which we share only one here. "The human face of our educator, Father Justin," writes one of his students, "and the path by which he introduced us to the mysteries of the Gospel were what captivated us and bound us to him. The most precious thing he taught us was to love Christ. Love for Christ, youthfully pure and inspired, was what connected us with our tutor, who quickly became our spiritual father. We all called him Father Justin. Father Justin understood his educational work with his students as preparing them for eternal life, for as he once said in a sermon, so he himself acted. "Whoever does not teach eternal life," he proclaimed, "is a false educator." His educational method was solely the Holy Gospel, and his goal—the Gospel goal: to become perfect, as our Heavenly Father is perfect (see Matthew 5:48 ). This was achieved through Orthodox churchliness and spirituality, and he was the living embodiment of both. He especially instilled in his students an Orthodox prayerful attitude, particularly through regular church attendance, voluntary Orthodox asceticism, and the acquisition of virtues.

Not all of his students responded equally to his educational work and his care for them and their souls, but all were certain that he loved them and prayed for them equally. One of his reports on education best describes what it meant to him and his attitude toward his students. Father Justin writes: “Teaching students to live according to the Gospel is the goal of education in an Orthodox seminary. This alone and nothing else. Anyone who imposes another goal is a fighter against Christ. The most wondrous Lord Jesus came into this world of horror and death to be all in all. Those who come without Him, bypassing Him, are thieves and robbers against Him. The awareness of Him as the one and only irreplaceable God and Lord is present in every truly Orthodox soul. If something in education does not lead to Him, then it undoubtedly leads to the Antichrist.” Orthodox education strives to ensure that the Savior's Gospel embraces every human soul, encompassing all its vastness and infinity, and thus transforms man into an eternal and divine-human being. Therefore, Orthodox education is a comprehensive personal endeavor. It cannot be imposed by force or mechanically. From beginning to end, it is a voluntary, personal matter of the individual as the owner and bearer of their own soul. Therefore, constant spiritual effort and personal struggle are essential. Education in the spirit of the Gospel is nothing other than the evangelical co-service of educator and student in all that is Christ's. This contains both joy and sorrow: joy, for man partakes of the one true joy—the Gospel; sorrow, for it is difficult to overcome the soul and voluntarily submit it to the divine laws of the Gospel. The beginning of a person's evangelical self-education is merciless self-condemnation. And, moreover, self-condemnation in the Gospel, which again means constantly and mercilessly subordinating every thought, every desire, every feeling, every action to the Gospel. All of this is divinely wisely expressed in the following patristic words: "Self-condemnation is the beginning of salvation." The Lord Jesus Christ expressed the fate of everything Gospel in the world with His wondrous, prophetic parable of the sower and the seed. This parable... has also been realized in the educational work at our seminary. The good soil bore the Gospel seed sixtyfold, a hundredfold, fruit, but there were also thorns, which choked many Gospel seeds, and stones, which treated the seed with indifference. But this latter is a special foundation, strengthening our prayers and prayerful aspirations: may the wondrous Heavenly Sower multiply the good soil in the souls of our students.

Father Justin prayed especially fervently for his disciples as his spiritual children, caring for their physical and spiritual concerns and needs. He helped them as much as he could, both spiritually and materially, and upon completing their studies, he sent them off to work in the Lord's vineyard with blessing, prayers, and tears . 41 And in general, during this time of service at the seminary, he prayed very often and profusely, just as he had earlier in Athens. At this time, he was ordained a hieromonk and began to serve even more frequently and pray fervently for others, especially at the Holy Liturgy. His ordination took place in the following manner.

In 1922, the feast of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist fell on a Monday. The previous Sunday, Patriarch Dimitri had ordained Hierodeacon Irenaeus, a friend of Father Justin, to the rank of hieromonk. On the Saturday before, the Patriarch had informed him that he could also ordain him to the rank of hieromonk on the feast of the Beheading. Desiring, out of deep humility, to remain a hierodeacon—and he sincerely loved this rank and this ministry—he asked the Patriarch not to do so, but to retain him in his rank. That night, he fervently and tearfully prayed to the Sweetest Lord and the Most Holy Theotokos, as well as to St. John Chrysostom , asking for enlightenment and instruction in what he should do. The very next day, Sunday afternoon, Bishop Nikolai was giving his usual engaging lecture at the Karlovac Seminary, so the seminarians, including Father Justin, were late for Vespers. When Father Justin ran into the church, he saw the gray-haired Patriarch himself take the stole, don it, and begin serving Vespers. "This struck me so deeply," as he himself recounted, "that I felt a profound change within myself and said, 'I will accept ordination and obedience.'" And so His Holiness Dimitri ordained him the following day, the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist. During his ordination to the priesthood, he wept before the Holy Table like a little child, for the Sacrament of Priesthood is a great thing.

He felt that the time of his beloved deacon's service had passed and now a much heavier service and responsibility was placed on his shoulders - the gracious pastoral service, which would not leave him time to pray and care only for his own soul, but would oblige him to shepherd and save the souls of others.

And truly, having accepted hieromonkhood, he became not only a priest but also a shepherd of many souls. For many, he would soon become a spiritual father: both for the students of the seminaries where he taught, and for many other faithful souls of the Serbian Church. He was especially concerned for young people who were facing serious spiritual questions. As a hieromonk, he was often invited to monasteries and parish churches to serve and preach. He was equally often asked to participate in spiritual evenings at educational institutions, as well as in various clergy meetings. He especially loved his devout pilgrim brothers, helping and supporting them in every way, and warning them of possible dangers . 42 He viewed the Orthodox Piotrological Movement as a Saint Sava-like reaction of simple souls of the people, hungering and thirsting for God, to an alien European culture that, instead of the Orthodox worship of Christ, imposed the worship of man on the people. "The rationalistic-scholastic enlightenment of Roman Catholic and Protestant Europe does not apply to our national soul," he said and wrote. This is why the Pilgrim movement emerged among the people as a rebellion against the "carnal and mechanical European enlightenment." "The hunger of our soul is great," he wrote further, "it penetrates much deeper than our intellectuals can imagine... And no one can satisfy this hunger except the Lord Jesus Christ and His saints." The Pilgrim brothers, both then and later, loved Father Justin so much that they considered him, after Bishop Nicholas, their leader, spiritual father, and teacher.

Father Justin's relationship with Bishop Nikolai was the same as that of a son and student for his father and teacher, just as Saints Anthony and Athanasius the Great once shared a mutual love for each other . A touching event befell them during those first years spent in Karlovci. When Bishop Nikolai's "Prayers on the Lake" were published, Father Justin responded with exceptional inspiration and gratitude to God for gifting the Serbian people with such a prayer book and confessor. He concluded his response to the book with the prayer: "Lord, Lover of Mankind, pray to me with the prayerfulness of the Most Reverend Father Nikolai." Then the Most Reverend Ohrid hermit and apostle of his time "composed and dedicated to Hieromonk Justin" a wondrous Akathist to Jesus, the Conqueror of Death. He wrote the Akathist in his own hand and modestly signed it "Monk Nikolai." Father Justin noted this event in his Prayer Diary with the following words: “When I wrote my response to ‘Prayers on the Lake,’ I wept, testifying to myself how I was enmeshed in feelings and bound by bonds; I felt joy that the Most Merciful Lord had granted us the Most Reverend Nicholas, our dear one... And when I received his Akathist, I wept from the sense of my own sinfulness and lack of prayer.” Truly wondrous and touching to the point of tears is this mutual love and great humility of one before the other, teacher and student, who justified the Wisdom of God and the Love of God for us (see: Matthew 11:19, 25-26 ).

Father Justin also had a particularly close spiritual relationship with another great man of God at that time. This was the Russian Orthodox hierarch and theologian Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) , who was then in Sremski Karlovci. Father Justin visited him often, confessed to him, and served with him, and he gained much spiritual wisdom and ascetic experience from him. He wrote about him repeatedly, especially after the blessed repose of Metropolitan Anthony . He succinctly expressed his attitude toward him in the following words, which were preserved in his notes: "Metropolitan Anthony has already become a tradition among us, and this is, first and foremost, a sacred tradition. He wrote little, but he lived the life of the Lives of the Saints, and therefore all that remains of him is precious."

Besides Metropolitan Anthony, Father Justin was spiritually friendly with His Grace, Archbishop Anastasius of Chisinau, whom he particularly valued for his truly angelic prayerfulness. He also enjoyed a close spiritual relationship with Father Archpriest Alexei Nelyubov, whose surname, as Father Justin said, was the complete opposite of what he really was: he was all love and prayerful warmth. He also went to confession with him. In other words, Father Justin greatly loved his Russian Orthodox brethren, just as he loved his Greek and Bulgarian Orthodox brethren. Later, he also visited Bulgaria: already a professor at the Theological Faculty, he took his students to the holy sites and monasteries of Bulgaria. Spiritual love and friendship also connected him with another significant figure of our time: as a professor in Bitola, he was a colleague and companion of the saintly Father.John (Maximovich) , the future Bishop of Shanghai, who ended his God-pleasing life, full of prayer and self-denial, in San Francisco (USA), while still living on earth being glorified by God for the abundance of gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And who did not the loving Father Justin love? He perceived the sorrows and griefs of others as his own, weeping with those who wept and prayerfully crying out to God for them, doing so in secret, hidden from human eyes. Therefore, it is as if he testifies and confesses of himself when he says: “In this sorrowful and sad world, the gift of tears is the most touching and most wondrous gift. To weep over the sorrowful mystery of the world is given only to the chosen ones. And through its chosen ones, all creation wept, wept through the sorrowful eyes of the holy intercessors of the human race, mingled with prayer.” Truly, he was one of those rare holy intercessors and prayerful intercessors before God for the entire long-suffering human race, for every God-like and Christ-like human being and for every creature.

Sometimes, this prayerful sorrow of Father Justin, sympathetic to all and sundry, gave rise—due, on the one hand, to his personal humility and contrition, and, on the other, to the daily strain and burden of affairs and concerns at the seminary and elsewhere—to a strong desire to leave the world and go to a monastery or even Mount Athos. Overwhelmed by the cares and worries of teaching at the seminary and elsewhere, and also by the publication of the journal he published in those years with his friends , he, like Saint Sabbas, painfully regretted the time lost to prayer and prayerful silence. It was therefore quite natural that he would long to abandon all this and seclude himself in a monastery or retreat into the desert for zealous practice in prayer and the pursuit of ascetic labors. From his "Prayer Diary," it is clear that during these days he often reproached himself and wept, as if he had "neglected" his monastic labors and "abandoned them entirely." Thus, in his diary for 1922, on the eve of the feast of St. Chrysostom—a saint he loved deeply and to whom he prayed unceasingly throughout his life—he wrote in prayerful weeping and self-condemnation: "Am I really a monk? All my labors have been wasted... I must abandon all this and go into the desert, to Athos (the Holy Mountain), and devote myself to prayer and fasting... When will I finally follow the Sweetest Lord entirely through the ascetic life in a monastery?" At the end of that same year, summing up the past year, he humbly considered his entire labor of fasting and prayer to be dead, and so he tearfully prayed to Saint Basil the Great : "Holy Father Basil the Great, raise my dead body in the new year." That same night, at the end of 1922 and on the eve of the new year, he performed approximately two thousand prostrations and prayers and humbly concluded the gathering of the spiritual fruits of the past year with the Gospel words: "As usual, I endure." These words, no less than his prayers and tears, reveal his labor. Just how necessary and beneficial is the holy virtue of Christ-like patience on the God-human path of spiritual life and the salvation of the Orthodox, is known only to those who have experienced these true words of the Savior in the Holy Gospel: " By your patience possess ye your souls" ( Luke 21:19 ), as well as the apostle's good news that our God is called and is not only the God of love, but also the God of patience and consolation ( Rom. 15:5 ). And truly, in the feat of evangelical patience for the sake of God and for the sake of Christ's Church—the pastoral duties he sacredly fulfilled, which is why he remained in public service—Father Justin triumphantly endured and received a reward from God. Truly, by patience, he saved his soul.

While remaining in the world, engaged in apostolic ministry, he strove to fulfill and sanctify his work and daily concerns with the Jesus Prayer of the mind and heart. He clearly desired to devote himself to this prayer even more deeply, and this ardent desire drew him to the monastery and the silence of the desert. That this prayer had already become ingrained in his heart at that time is evident from his "Prayer Diary," where in many places, for example, during 1923, he noted that he recited five hundred, one thousand, and two thousand Jesus Prayers daily. This is also evident from his zealous reading of the works of the holy ascetics who labored in the desert, as well as the writings of St. Ignatius Brianchaninov on the importance of the holy prayer that reads: "Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!" - which from time immemorial has spiritually nourished countless God-loving souls.

Father Justin continued teaching at the Karlovac Seminary until 1927. It was in March of that year that he passed his professorship exam, his dissertation written on an exceptionally profound Orthodox ascetic-theological topic: "The Epistemology of St. Isaac the Syrian ." This work briefly describes all the mysteries and depths of Orthodox asceticism on the path to spiritual rebirth and salvation: from the old man corrupted by sin to the reborn and deified new man in Christ.

At the same time, he and his friends, primarily fellow students from Oxford, published and edited Christian Life, a journal describing church life and studying Christian culture. An ascetic and zealous in every godly endeavor, Father Justin remained so in his work of educating the ecclesiastical consciousness of our people and developing criteria for Orthodox churchliness. A lover of truth from childhood, and even more so now, as an ascetic monk and patristic theologian, he, out of love for truth and justice, like the saints he loved, especially St. John Chrysostom and the holy monks of Studite, openly expressed his opinions, and sometimes critical judgments, on events in church life and the actions of individual church figures or authorities . In posing and evaluating pressing issues of church life, Hieromonk Justin, the editor of the journal, did not merely "criticize," as some then and later maliciously called it. There was, of course, criticism, but mostly it was a positive Orthodox assessment or reassessment of the events and times in which he lived and worked. There were fraternal and filial warnings and pleas, there was support and gratitude where needed, and there were also inspired prophetic insights. All his publications from that time, and especially his articles, have lost none of their freshness and relevance to this day, for they are all imbued with a patristic, grace-filled, free spirit and love for the Church of Christ and the salvation of mankind. Everything truly human, truly ecclesiastical, and Orthodox, no matter how difficult and bitter it may seem, found its response and support in the journal of Father Justin and his contributors. "It's easy to be a Roman Catholic," he wrote at the time, "even easier to be a Protestant, but it's hard, very hard to be Orthodox. For to be Orthodox means to be in constant struggle from man to God-man, to be in constant self-organization through God-human struggles."

Meanwhile, some Church officials, including high-ranking ones, disliked this activity. It took spiritual courage, ascetic self-denial, and self-reproach to take on the burden of pointing people to the truth and reminding them of it, exposing any untruth or falsehood—something that people never took lightly. Expressions of dissatisfaction were raised against Christian Life and its staff, primarily against Father Justin. Father Justin himself was aware and felt what was happening around him, but he never wavered from his love for truth and justice in serving the Church of Christ. Here's what he himself wrote about Christian Life two years after the magazine's publication began : "Christian Life abounds with blessings from many readers, but there are also those who criticize it. Without these latter, "Christian Life" would not be Christian, for everything that belongs to Christ is a "stumbling block," a "rock of offense." "Christian Life" knows what it wants, and it wants what the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church wants, which is why it has alarmed those who, at least in part, do not want this. The Orthodox Church is something so holy, so pure, so supernatural and grace-filled, that everything ecclesiastical must be approached "with the fear of God and faith," for we approach the living Lord Jesus. "Christian Life" ceaselessly calls for such a sacred, Orthodox way of serving in the Church... It ceaselessly confesses that the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, governs the Church through the Holy Fathers. We do not preach ourselves, but the Lord Jesus Christ through the Holy Fathers. Therefore, Christian Life is disliked by those who preach themselves, who claim the place of the Holy Fathers for themselves, and who constantly pander to the spirit of the times. We continually emphasize that the Holy Fathers are the best thinkers in the Church, for they think with the Holy Spirit. There are also those who call for reforms in the Church, failing to recognize that all reforms in the spirit of the times are destructive to the Orthodox Church. Christian Life opposes this; it expresses the Orthodox view when it asserts that the saints show us the Orthodox path to personal transformation and social transformation: transform yourself first by the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the Lord Himself will transform others through you. We turn to reforms for help because we have abandoned our indispensable Holy Fathers and ascetics and have become infected with superficial Western reformism. We have forgotten the commandment: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect ( Rom. 12:2 ).

Because of this honest and frank position, Father Justin had trouble even back when he was concerned about the material and spiritual well-being and growth of his students at the seminary. Once, even prominent bishops, feeling offended by Hieromonk Justin's articles, wanted to bring him before the Holy Synod . His Holiness Patriarch Dimitry exempted him from the trial, telling the archpastors that everything Father Justin had written was the absolute truth. Incidentally, Patriarch Dimitry loved and valued Hieromonk Justin, and on this occasion, summoning him, he said to him with paternal kindness: "You know, my son, you're a good monk and all is well, but you should write less, because your pen is sharp, and some people take offense at that."

However, even His Holiness the Patriarch could not prevent the Gospel and patristic truth that "truth in this world treads with the feet of suffering" from being fulfilled in the faithful servant of Christ, Father Justin. All of God's people, and especially the ardent and zealous laborers in the Lord's vineyard, from apostolic times to the present day, have always endured sorrows, temptations, and suffering. Bearing and bearing witness to God's truth, they have always encountered opposition and resistance around them. For goodness weighs heavily on and wounds those unwilling to endure selfless labor and sacrifice for its sake. Therefore, the fate of all virtuous people and those zealous in God's work is resistance from those around them and, ultimately, persecution. This is what happened to Father Justin. In the summer of 1927, although he was formally only "transferred," he was in fact exiled to Prizren .

Behind this "relocation" lay the clear intention of those who expelled Father Justin to cease the work of the journal "Christian Life," which was indeed achieved, since conditions for its publication were lacking in Prizren. In an article written on this matter , Father Justin does not grieve or regret his own persecution and suffering. "Man persecutes man, moth persecutes moth," he wrote. "What's so terrible about that? Nothing." He does not even mourn the journal "Christian Life." But he keenly feels the need to defend his Orthodox path, for in doing so he defends the Truth. In this regard, he writes: "I must defend the path I follow: not because it is my path, but because it is the path of Christ. He revealed it, He paved it, He made it safe. This is the first and only path from the stinking abyss of the earth to the heights of the fragrant heaven.

The first and only one—there is no other. All other paths curl into a circle of hopeless horrors. His path is His boundless and infinite God-man Person. As soon as a person sets foot on it, they enter into eternal Truth and eternal Life, for the Way, Truth , and Life are consubstantial in the Lord Jesus Christ... The human soul is pitiful, both before and after death, unless the miracle-working Lord leads it onto His God-man path. This path of Christ is preserved in the Orthodox Church by the Holy Spirit through the holy fathers... If I am Jonah on the ship of the Serbian Church, then throw me into the sea, only let the storm subside, only let the ship be saved. And perhaps some hospitable whale will take me into its womb and, when necessary, cast me ashore... All suffering is good for the sake of the irreplaceable Lord. The more suffering rises against my faith, the deeper it burrows into my heart. For a Christian, suffering is a purification, a spring for the soul, a refreshment, a rejuvenation... In my struggle for Orthodoxy, I followed the patristic path of the Orthodox Truth of Christ directly and never tried to please people, for if I had, I would not have been the least of Christ's servants. "I am continually convinced that only by assimilating the patristic consciousness and the ascetic understanding of Orthodoxy can our frozen, paralyzed sense of churchliness be revived... And while the world boils in our minds and our sins dwell within us, the Christ-loving Orthodox soul yearns for a conciliar life with all the saints in the Lord Christ, for conciliar labors and exploits with all the saints in our long-suffering Church; it yearns and prayerfully cries out: 'Having remembered our Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints, let us commit ourselves, one another, and our whole life to Christ our God. To Thee, O Lord!'"

Indeed, one can only regret that "Christian Life" ceased to exist so quickly and in such a manner. For in it, many, especially young ascetic and missionary-minded pastors, found rich Orthodox material, support, and inspiration for their work. Many paid attention to the editor's opinions of this strictly ecclesiastical and Orthodox journal, and not only gained knowledge but also grasped the breadth of Universal Orthodoxy and Christian love for all their Orthodox brothers in the world, especially for the sufferers and confessors in Russia, oppressed by a new Diocletian. In addition, the journal regularly followed all ecclesiastical and theological processes in Orthodoxy and basically agreed with the opinion of the Holy Bishops' Council regarding all reformist innovations emanating from the then ruling Constantinople patriarchs and their "pan-Orthodox congresses" or from the upcoming "ecumenical councils" (about which Father Justin wrote denunciatory words both then and until recently), or from the anti-Orthodox Russian "Living Churchmen" 51. In the same way, both then and subsequently, Father Justin pointed out the dangers of Roman and Uniate propaganda and of papism and Protestantism, which are unacceptable for Orthodox people 52 . At the end of each issue of "Christian Life" were excellent theological articles—both theoretical and practical—on a variety of topics, as well as translations of patristic works, mostly prepared by Father Justin himself (Homilies of St. Chrysostom, St. Macarius of Egypt , St. Ephraim and Isaac the Syrian, and, somewhat later, Bishop Palladius's "Lavsaik," published as an independent book in two parts). This spiritual reading was of great interest to both Father Justin and our Orthodox people, who supported and welcomed everything that emerged in this area. Although he himself was never able to go to Mount Athos, 53 he always advised both the laity and the clergy, and especially monks, to make pilgrimages to the Holy Mountain and learn Athonite piety and zeal for asceticism.

Father Justin remained at the Prizren Seminary for only a year (from August 1927 to June 1928) and was returned to Sremski Karlovci. During this year, he earned the universal love of the seminarians and teachers, for through his life and works, he truly demonstrated that "theology is not dialectic or the skillful quotation of Scripture , but a living and active engagement with the great mystery of Christ and the Church," as one of his students in Prizren would write of him. This was also the case several years later at the Bitola Seminary, where he was a professor from 1932 to 1934, as evidenced by the letters of his students and their living testimonies.

New temptations befell Father Justin in Karlovci after the death of the seminary's rector, Archpriest Dobrosav Kovačević († October 9, 1929). By decree of the Holy Synod, Father Justin was appointed acting rector. He later told us that he had truly desired to become rector of the seminary: not out of love for glory, but out of a desire to better organize the lives and work of young theologians, for the greater benefit of the Serbian Church. However, already in March 1930, a teacher from a girls' high school from Belgrade was appointed rector. He was not a professor at the seminary and held very different concepts and opinions from Father Justin and the majority of the seminary faculty. Clashes between the selfless ascetic and the self-indulgent master quickly followed. This resulted in a well-known division among the students, and the new rector began expelling those students who loved Father Justin and remained spiritually devoted to him. The powers that be and those in power sided with the rector, and Father Justin was once again removed from the Karlovac Seminary. This time, he was sent to difficult work abroad, but ultimately, he only increased his efforts to the greater glory of God and the benefit of the Orthodox Church.

By decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Church in December 1930, Father Justin was sent to Carpathian Ruthenia in Czechoslovakia as an escort and assistant to Bishop Josif (Cvijević) of Bitola. Their task was to facilitate a better understanding of Orthodoxy and improve the ecclesiastical organization of Orthodox Christians in Czechoslovakia, particularly in the Carpathian regions, where Christians had begun to return to Orthodoxy in the previous ten years from the forcibly imposed Union with Rome. Czech Christians themselves had also requested such assistance from the Serbian Church, and Bishop Dositheus of Niš was already working there. Now, it was necessary to once again provide unobtrusive and more concrete assistance to these Orthodox brothers, especially since the ecclesiastical situation in Czechoslovakia was complex due to the disunity of the Orthodox themselves. The Serbian Church responded with apostolic love, sending Bishop Josif and Father Justin there.

In Prague, they were met and fraternally received by the Orthodox Bishop Gorazd, and then by representatives of the Czech authorities, since everything had to be unconstrained and legal. On December 17, 1930, they set out on apostolic, missionary work in the Carpathian region, and first visited the cities of Uzhgorod, Khust, Iza (where Orthodoxy appeared as early as 1904), Vryo, Mukachevo, Vladimir, Prešov and Krakow, and then numerous villages both in the plains and in the mountainous regions of the Carpathians 54 . They also stopped at recently opened Orthodox monasteries: the St. Nicholas Monastery (near the city of Iza) and the Lipši Convent, where there were over seventy sisters who, as Father Justin noted, were "rich in poverty and simplicity."

These two apostolic missionaries zealously traveled wherever Orthodox were found, in rain and snow, celebrating the holy liturgy and preaching the Gospel of Christ and the science of Orthodoxy, just as the holy brothers Cyril and Methodius, Equal to the Apostles, had once done. They selflessly and ascetically carried out their missionary work, especially Father Justin (for Metropolitan Joseph returned to Belgrade after several months on synodal business), strengthening this young flock, which was not yet firmly established in Orthodoxy, in every way possible. The people, according to Father Justin's general impression, were simple and pious, having suffered greatly at the hands of the Uniates, while among the clergy, among those who were honest and zealous, were also disorganized and modernist-minded. Father Justin's missionary work consisted of service and preaching, teaching and spiritual guidance, the organization of parish and monastic life, regular services, and other Orthodox, grace-filled, and canonical matters. With the help of all this, it was necessary to strengthen the people of God, to root them in the gracious depths of Holy Orthodoxy, to plant them, like olive trees and vines, in the spiritual paradise of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Christ. In other words, it was necessary to organize and prepare an independent Orthodox Local Church in Czechoslovakia.

In this difficult but God-pleasing task, Hieromonk Justin, then Protosingel Justin (for Metropolitan Joseph bestowed this honor and expressed gratitude on him from the Holy Synod), demonstrated filial obedience and zealously assisted Bishop Justin, so much so that even Bishop Justin later reported with sincere gratitude to the Holy Synod and the Patriarch that never in his life had anyone obeyed him so much or served him so much as Father Justin. For his apostolic and selfless work in Czechoslovakia, Metropolitan Joseph proposed to the Council of Bishops of the Serbian Church that Father Justin be consecrated Bishop of Mukachevo to the reestablished see. A lengthy correspondence ensued between Father Justin and Bishop Justin regarding this matter, but ultimately Father Justin declined to accept the episcopal rank and see.

A letter of his to His Grace Joseph on this topic has been preserved, written on September 2 (O.S.), 1931, in Mukachevo and delivered in a rewritten form to Patriarch Barnabas and Bishop Nikolai. In it, Father Justin explains his refusal of the cathedra: "I ask Your Grace's apology and forgiveness for acting in this way. I write this under the irresistible dictation of my conscience. The path by which I lead my soul through this world to the next is in question... Your Grace has repeatedly brought to my attention, and especially in these days before my trip to the Holy Council of Bishops, that I must remain a bishop in Carpathian Rus'. I have refused this and I refuse it now. And this refusal of mine is not the result of a momentary mood, but the fruit of long reflection, and most importantly, the fruit of my constant and unwavering feeling that I am not fit to be a bishop... I have long and seriously examined myself from the Gospel, examined myself through the Gospel, judged myself by the Gospel, and have come to an unwavering conclusion and an unshakable decision: I under no circumstances can and do not dare accept the episcopal rank, for I lack the fundamental Gospel qualities for it. If I, being such, were to accept this rank, I would consciously and therefore unforgivably expose myself to the condemnation of the Savior's parable about the man who rashly began to build a tower but was unable to finish it because he had not sat down beforehand and calculated all the costs and whether he had the strength and means to complete it. I know myself very well: it is very difficult for me to keep my own soul within the bounds of Christ's goodness, much less hundreds of thousands of other souls. And to answer for them before God! "Measuring myself by the Gospel standard, judging myself by the terrible judgment of the Gospel, I find desperate shortcomings and fatal flaws everywhere within myself, and therefore, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my being, I have made an unchangeable decision: under no circumstances will I accept the episcopal rank... And furthermore: the Mukachevo diocese is such that it would be difficult for someone with extensive episcopal experience to get comfortable there, much less me—inexperienced, inexperienced, and inept. Everything here is in chaos; nothing has yet resulted in any definite legal (canonical) norms, or in religious-ecclesiastical practices and customs... Therefore, a skilled, proven bishop is needed here, possessing extensive, blessed experience and seasoned business skills. Without this, everything here could collapse and perish. " 55

Although Metropolitan Joseph tried in every way to persuade and persuade Father Justin to accept the episcopacy (“Do not lose sight of the fact,” he wrote to him, “that a lamp is not placed under a bushel... therefore, reconcile yourself to what is due to you”), the humble abba did not waver in his decision. He usually responded to all of the bishop’s justifications with arguments from the Holy Scriptures , and Metropolitan Joseph, who had love for him, once answered him half jokingly and half seriously: “The whole trouble is that you know the Holy Scriptures so well!” Father Justin's connections with the faithful from the Carpathian region were not broken even after his return from Czechoslovakia at the beginning of 1932, because not only did many write to him from there, calling him their spiritual father, and not only did he respond to them from Serbia and help them as best he could, but he also had a sufficient number of his own disciples, and later students, from the Carpathian region, who considered the Serbian Church to be their Mother Church.

Upon returning from missionary work in Czechoslovakia, Father Justin did not immediately receive a position at the seminary, perhaps due to his refusal to accept the episcopal ordination, which he was never offered again. However, at this time, he was rapidly writing his first volume, "Dogmatics," which he published in October of that year. It was not until August 1932 that he received a professorship at the Bitola Seminary, where he would work tirelessly for two years. As elsewhere, in Bitola, he invested much labor and love in theological education and evangelical formation of young theologians, teaching Holy Scripture and dogmatics. Both professors and mentors, as well as seminarians, loved and esteemed him here, and when, two years later, he was transferred from Bitola to Belgrade as an associate professor in the theological faculty, the entire seminary and a large number of pious townspeople accompanied him.

Although Father Justin had long been renowned throughout the world as a patristic Orthodox theologian, his election as professor at the Theological Faculty in Belgrade was not without difficulties—difficulties that only testify to his greatness and the cowardice and malice of some. Most of the professors at the Theological Faculty—among them, the finest in both human qualities and theological knowledge—had long supported Father Justin's election and had worked to achieve it. For it was already known that, as early as 1928, the Orthodox Metropolitan of the Polish Church and the University of Warsaw had repeatedly invited Dr. Justin Popovic to assume the Chair of Dogmatic Theology at that university's department to teach a course in Orthodox theology . The renowned Russian theologian Nikolai Glubokovsky , who was teaching at Sofia University at the time and wrote to Serbian Patriarch Barnabas in 1932 that Father Justin should be given the opportunity to work in his specialty in Orthodox theology, applying his knowledge, energy, and spiritual experience, also acted in this direction . The Patriarch did not respond to this letter, and it is not for us to draw conclusions about whether he in any way facilitated Father Justin's arrival at the Theological Faculty. We do not wish to explore here the intrigues of renowned professors and other outsiders (including the aforementioned rector of the Karlovac Seminary), who attempted to call into question even Father Justin's diplomas or even his theological works, for why burden ourselves with human vanity and delve into human baseness ?

Thank God, prudence prevailed, and thus the prestige of the Theological Faculty in Belgrade was preserved and even enhanced. Its renown was brought to light by its associate professor, then professor, Archimandrite Justin Popović, an Orthodox dogmatist. As early as 1935, he published the second, massive volume of his "Dogmatics," in which, in a manner unique since the time of the Holy Fathers, he expounded the all-holy truth of Orthodoxy: the God-Man and His work of salvation (Christology and soteriology). His "Dogmatics" began to be taught in theological schools and faculties in Greece, Bulgaria, and the United States , [59 ] and we can confidently say that Serbian Orthodox theology to this day is as renowned for "The Orthodox Philosophy of Truth" by Justin Popović (as he himself called his "Dogmatics").

Following a positive report from two professors of the Faculty of Theology (February 1, 1934), Father Justin was elected associate professor of the Department of Comparative Theology and assumed his post on December 21 of that year. (He was subsequently elected professor of dogmatics.) On January 16, 1935, he delivered his inaugural lecture at the Faculty of Theology on the topic "On the Essence of Orthodox Axiology and Criteriology," which represented a remarkable Orthodox theological confession of faith in the God-Man Christ and His Holy Orthodox Church, the like of which had not been heard, especially in universities, since the time of Saint Sava of Serbia and Saint Gregory Palamas: "The Lord Jesus Christ as the God-Man Person is the highest value and infallible standard; As such, He is also the Person who is the highest criterion of all true values... For there is no God outside the God-man, and there is no man outside the God-man... The Lord Jesus Christ reduces all His teachings and deeds to His God-man Person and explains them by it. Therefore, the Apostolic, Orthodox Church of Christ reduces everything in Christianity to the Life-giving Person of the God-man: teaching, truth, justice, goodness, and life. The image of the God-man Christ is its highest significance and greatest, incomparable value. For Christianity is the Christianity of the God-man; this is its exceptional significance, and essence, and strength. The Lord Jesus Christ left Himself, His God-man Person, as the Church; hence the Church is the Church only as the God-man and in the God-man. The God-man is the essence, and the goal, and the meaning, and the all-valuable value of the Church; He is its soul, and its heart, and its life; He is the Church itself in its God-man fullness, for the Church is none other than the God-man Christ, living forever and ever." Following this apostolic and patristic confession of the God-man, Father Justin spoke of the Church as the Body of Christ and of the faithful as living cells and members of this God-man Body. He then critically examined Western humanistic confessions, Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, in which "the foundation of Christianity is transferred from the eternal God-man to corruptible man," thereby effecting a "painful and sorrowful" adjustment of the God-man, His work of salvation, and His teaching. Only the Apostolic Orthodox Church has preserved the true Image and Person of the God-man Christ. "Therefore, there can be no Christian without faith in the God-man Christ and His God-man Body—the Church, to which He bequeathed His entire wondrous Person."

At the same time that Father Justin was so professing the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, from the university pulpit, he was no less professing Him in courts and before the princes of this world. A certain atheist, Dragoljub Damjanović, published a book in Belgrade, "The Life of Jesus of Nazareth," which Father Justin reviewed in the journal "Christian Thought" (No. 1, 1935), exposing it as a true "robber's book" about the Lord Jesus, demonstrating its unscientific, pamphleteering, and anti-Christian nature. On this matter, the aforementioned Damjanović accused Father Justin in court, and the latter answered before the court and, in an apostolic manner, defended his beloved God and Lord. He began his response at the trial with the following confessional and martyr-like words: "Gentlemen, although Mr. Damjanovich denies the Lord Christ and His Holy Gospel, nevertheless today Christ's prophecy is once again being fulfilled before us all: They will deliver you up to courts... and you will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, for a testimony before them and the Gentiles ( Matthew 10:17-18 ). So, the Gospel of Christ is continually being fulfilled and reveals its truth... As for me, I fear no condemnation on earth except Christ's. If I must suffer for the sake of the Lord Christ, I am ready for it with joy." This trial ended to the glory of Christ, with the victory of His faithful servant and confessor, and to the shame of the atheist, of whom there were somehow becoming more and more among us at that time . 60

Father Justin publicly and fearlessly confessed the God-Man, the Lord Christ, in other gatherings as well, such as in lectures at the Kolarče National University (where in 1939 he delivered a brilliant lecture on the Resurrection of the God-Man Christ) or in the company of Serbian intellectuals with whom he interacted and befriended. Possessing a penetrating intellect and being an exceptionally educated and cultured man, he enjoyed authority among the true intelligentsia of our people, but the most important and most important thing they sensed in him was his spirituality, for the spiritual in him supplanted everything worldly, and the grace-filled dominated the intellectual. He was also one of the founders of the Serbian Philosophical Society (founded on October 22, 1938, on the initiative of the philosopher Branislav Petronijević), and participated in various cultural, literary, and scientific gatherings (he was especially friendly with B. Nušić). However, he always preached not himself, but Christ, testifying to Him, and not to himself or any other person. In 1926, he published an article regarding the behavior of a certain part of our intelligentsia, entitled "Our Intelligentsia and Our Church," in which he focused on that part of the intelligentsia that fails to notice the divine-human dimensions of man and thereby narrows, reduces, and humiliates him; and, conversely, in this article, he welcomes that part of the intelligentsia that awakens to a broader, deeper, and loftier man, to a man less mortal and more immortal in Christ the God-Man . 61

In other words, Father Justin was always open and filled with love for every human being, and especially for the intelligentsia, who sincerely sought and thirsted for truth, especially students. Students actively attended and eagerly listened to his lectures, read his books and articles; and today, Father Justin's works are read not only as literary or theological works, but above all as daily bread and sweet spiritual nourishment. Students and intellectuals were, and still are, particularly interested in his book on Dostoevsky (which he revised and republished just before the war, dedicating it to the new confessors of Orthodoxy: His Holiness Patriarchs Barnabas of Serbia and Tikhon of Russia, testifying to his constant affinity and openness to universal human problems).

During the turbulent and ill-fated struggle surrounding Concordat 62 , Father Justin, as always, was a clear and unequivocal defender of the Holy Orthodox Church, a guardian of the freedom of soul and spirit of our Orthodox people, especially the young followers of Christ and laborers in the Lord's vineyard. Because of this, he soured his relations with some high-ranking church and government officials, but he never feared this, for he never sought to please people, but only pleased the Lord Jesus Christ and His Holy Church for the sake of the salvation of man and his people. How deeply he felt and experienced the tragedy of his times and the circumstances in which people were forced to live is evident in one vision he was granted in those days, just before the war, and of which he left us a written testimony: he saw a wandering monk, overgrown with hair and a beard, wearing a short robe and holding a staff in his hand. And then, when the monk's vision ceased, the head of the Savior in a crown of thorns appeared before his eyes, which disappeared for a moment, and then appeared again.

The same mood of his experience of these days and years is conveyed in an excerpt from his letter to a school friend, written on April 2 (O.S.), 1938: “As for me, here (in Belgrade) I feel like Jonah in the belly of a whale. There is no air of eternity at all; the lungs of the soul are ready to dry up. Someone’s hands are sweeping hot coals onto the young shoots of Christ in the neglected and abandoned vineyard of the Lord. Saint Sava, looking down upon the earth, shakes the heavens with his weeping. And we weep even more and more intensely, for we live on earth. Never has it been so necessary to arm ourselves with the full armor of God as now. And above all, we must arm ourselves with prayer, which the Sweetest Lord has granted us most abundantly and abundantly!.. And I need my neighbors to be vigilant around my soul in their prayers and ascetic labors.”

Father Justin arrived at the Monastery of the Holy Archangels – Čelije 63 near Valjevo on May 14 (O.S.), 1948, and remained there as a priest and spiritual father. Of this period of his life, we will say nothing more than these words: "When life, through the grace of Christ, passes into sacred living, it can no longer be encompassed in words."

In Cheliy, Father Justin completed his earthly life, being granted the blessed end of a righteous man and saint of God. This occurred precisely on the day of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos in 1979. Without imposing anything on anyone, but only prayerfully confessing our faith in the Lord and His saints, we conclude with prayer what we begin with prayer:

Reverend Father Justin, pray to God for us!

The burial of Father Justin and the forty-day commemoration

Upon the departure of Father Justin's blessed soul from his God-created and God-given body, his hieromonk disciples performed the rite of vesting him in the blue priestly vestments in which he had served the Holy Divine Liturgy. Now, in these vestments, fused with the Holy Liturgy, he departed for the Synaxis of the Heavenly Priests, where, in the heavenly temple not made with hands, he eternally and truly partakes of Christ. Upon completion of the vesting, his godlike and warm body, by grace, was lowered into a new reliquary, and a small panikhida was served over his body in his cell. With a solemn gathering of all the sisters of the Chelije monastery and a huge number of believers, since some had not yet left the monastery after the feast of the Annunciation, and others had already begun to arrive - for the news of the repose of Father Justin quickly spread and that same evening reached the Holy Mountain and Athens 64 - the body of the abbot was transferred to the monastery church of the Holy Archangels and placed here in the narthex.

The reading of the Holy Gospels, beginning with the Gospel of John, began during the blessed elder's departure and continued throughout the vesting process. It then continued in the church for three days and three nights, until the funeral service. The reading of the Four Gospels ceased only during holy services and memorial services, and was occasionally replaced by the reading of the Psalter by the nuns or pious believers, who spent all day and night in the monastery church, taking turns, until the funeral service and burial of the blessed body. The faithful from all corners of Yugoslavia and from abroad began to arrive that very evening, so that all together, young and old, especially seminary and student youth, together with the nun sisters, could keep vigil near the tomb of the blessed abbot and participate in listening to and reading the holy word of God, of which this new Serbian Chrysostom was an incessant evangelist and interpreter.

The blessed elder rested his body before us, with the blessed peace of God on his face, which shone upon us, blessing and comforting us with his spirit, partaker of the Holy Spirit. His gracious blessing was most abundantly manifested in the quiet and abundant tears of prayer pouring from our hearts and eyes, with waves of sorrow and joy, inexplicably alternating and flowing within our souls. Truly, during those three days and three nights, and even thereafter, right up until the forty-day commemoration, we experienced firsthand the truth of the holy Orthodox fathers and ascetics: that there exists a grace-filled, joy-giving weeping (called harmolipi in Greek ), which is at once both true weeping and true joy. Near Father Justin's coffin, this is precisely what we felt all those days: tears were unstoppable, but they were sorrowful-joyful, cross-resurrection tears, experienced only in moments of true repentance, mingled with grace. Everything here was quiet and meek; there were no cries or sobs—only a gentle rain of sorrow and tenderness, imbued with grace-filled consolation and heavenly sighs—feelings so characteristic of the holy abba, and therefore, perhaps, granted to us through his prayers. It was as if we were celebrating Holy Pascha, having just completed the rite of burial; precisely as one Athonite described it: "Father Justin's burial was the feast of Pascha!" This was felt during those three days and three nights in the very atmosphere surrounding Father Justin's coffin: the blessedly fallen saint of God, resting from the labors of his ascetic struggles in the peace of his Lord, seemed to breathe softly in the coffin—which, according to the clairvoyant Father Porphyrius of Greece, was also a sign of pleasing God and the overshadowing of grace—and this peaceful and peace-giving breath, or rather the breath of the Holy Spirit, was transmitted to us. We felt no pain or fatigue; we only rejoiced sadly in sorrow for God, in the living hope of resurrection, in the clear sense of the abba's undyingness and immortality. We dare not say that to the same degree, but certainly to some extent, we felt at his coffin what he had once felt at his mother's: a true and effective sense of immortality. The Risen Christ and the general resurrection were a reality that had come here and now, not only for the departed abba but also for us standing around his holy and fragrant body. For this gift, too, may glory be given to the All-Merciful Lord and His saint, who, even in death, bore witness to what he had preached and witnessed throughout his life: the Resurrection of Christ and our resurrection in Him are the alpha and omega of Christianity, and "the heavenly joy of existence is experienced through resurrection."

It was also miraculous, as others also testified to us, how in those days and hours our prayers for Father Justin gradually and imperceptibly turned and changed into prayers to him and his Lord and ours: for us, sinners and unworthy.

That first evening, Saturday, the Sunday all-night vigil was served from 10:00 PM until 3:00 AM, followed in the morning by the Holy Liturgy of St. Basil the Great . After the reading of the Holy Gospel and the requiem litany over Father Justin's coffin, Hieromonk Athanasius spoke of the lifelong preaching of the Good News—the Gospel—by this evangelist of Christ, Good Justin—the only true Gospel, despite the frequent preaching of evil in this world and in this life. Following the Holy Liturgy, at which all the sisters received the Holy Mysteries of Christ, a love feast was served in the monastery for all present in memory of the late Father-Hospiter. And over the next two days until the funeral, vigils were again served throughout the night, and Holy Liturgies during the day.

On the day of the funeral, a huge number of clergy from across the country and from other Local Orthodox Churches arrived at the monastery. All those spiritually connected to Father Justin were present, testifying to the fact that his spiritual radiance had long since become pan-Orthodox and universal. The unity of Orthodoxy, which Father Justin so vividly felt during his earthly life and to which he bore witness with faith, love, prayer, and theology, was graciously manifested here at his burial—in the unity of shared faith and love, in the unity of congregational prayers and hymns. Funeral hymns, requiem litanies, exclamations and prayers, and above all, the word of the Gospel, were heard at his burial in many Orthodox languages. The Cheli sisters chanted in Serbian, the Serbian and Russian clergy sang in Church Slavonic, and the Greek brothers sang in Greek... On this holy day, the assembly of God's people around the Church of the Holy Archangels and the sacred body of the elder Justin inhaled the fragrance of uniqueness and indestructible eternity and tearfully greeted the farewell words of the assembled clergy.

After the funeral service, the ark with the body was carried around the monastery church three times, and then the body, according to the original commandment of the Lord, was consigned to the dust of the earth - lowered into the ground on the south side of the altar of the Cheli Church.

After the final funeral chants and prayers, when the humble gravediggers—mostly local peasants and pilgrims, those wondrous and simple people of ours who so ardently loved Father Justin and whom he loved so fraternally and paternally—began to bury this priceless reliquary, the humble and joyful cry, "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and bestowing life on those in the tombs," resounded over the grave in many languages . And while the Cheli soil covered this newly revealed treasure trove of wisdom, from somewhere came the unexpected but clear voice of a poet:

He walked, guided by the truth

And preserved by Thy love, O Christ!

Eternal memory to you,

Christian new evangelist!..»

Since it was Lent, the Typikon did not require daily funeral liturgies (forty holy liturgies had been celebrated continuously since Holy Pascha alone). However, Father Justin's tomb became an integral part of the holy Church of Cheli, as regular censing and prayers, commemorations and parastases, hymns and troparia began to be performed there—just as in the ancient Church of Christ at the tombs of the holy martyrs and confessors. For every faithful of Christ who reposes in communion with the Church, and especially every saint of Christ, never departs or leaves the Church, but remains within it as within the ever-living heaven-earthly Body of Christ.

The forty-day commemoration of the blessed abba coincided with the feast of Mid-Pentecost (May 3). The Holy Liturgy was once again celebrated in Chelii by the bishop, attended by a vast congregation of people. After the service, everyone was once again offered the monastic meal of love.

May the Lord, the Lover of Mankind, have him in His eternal remembrance with all His saints, and may He have mercy on us and save him and their holy prayers.

Hieromonk Athanasius

Source: https://azbyka.org/otechnik/Iustin_Popovich/sobranie-tvorenij-tom1/1