Justin Popović

Justin Popović (, , secular name Blagoje Popović, ; 6 April 1894 – 7 April 1979) was a Serbian Orthodox theologian, archimandrite of the Ćelije Monastery, Dostoyevsky scholar, writer, anti-communist advocate and critic of the pragmatic church ecclesiastical life.

On 2 May 2010, he was canonized as a saint by the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church. In English, his name is sometimes spelled "Iustin Popovich".

Early life Popović was born to Spiridon, a sexton, and Anastasija Popović, in the southern Serbian town of Vranje, on 6 April 1894. At his baptism, he was given the name Blagoje after the Feast of the Annunciation (Blagovest means "Annunciation" or "Good News"). He was born into a priestly family, as seven previous generations (not including his father) of the Popovićs (Pop is Serbian for "priest") were headed by priests.

He completed his nine-year studies at the University of Belgrade's Faculty of Theology in 1914. In the early 20th century, the School of St. Sava in Belgrade was renowned throughout the Orthodox world as a holy place of extreme asceticism as well as of a high quality of scholarship. Some of the well-known professors were the rector, Fr. Domentian; Professor Fr. Dositheus, later a bishop; Athanas Popović; and the ecclesiastical composer, Stevan Mokranjac. Still, one professor stood head and shoulders above the rest: the hieromonk, Nikolaj Velimirović, professor of philosophy and theology. While in this capacity, he contracted typhus during the winter of 1914 and had to spend over a month in a hospital in Niš. On 8 January 1915, he resumed his duties sharing the destiny of the Serbian Army from Peć to Skadar during which 100,000 Serbian soldiers died. On 1 January 1916 he entered the monastic order in the Orthodox cathedral of Shkodër and took the name of Justin after St. Justin the Philosopher.

Russia

Shortly after he had become a monk, Popović, along with several other students travelled to Petrograd, Russia, for study in the Orthodox Seminary there. It was there the young Popović first dedicated himself more fully to Orthodoxy and the monastic way of life.

Athens In 1926, Popović was promoted to the title of the Doctor of Theology at the Faculty of Theology, university in Athens, Greece, his dissertation being "Problem ličnosti i saznanja po Sv. Makariju Egipatskom" — The Problem of Personality and Consciousness According to St. Macarius of Egypt. For his course on the Lives of the Saints, he began to translate into Serbian the Lives of the Saints from the Greek, Syriac and Slavonic sources, as well as numerous minor works of the Fathers (homilies of John Chrysostom, Macarius and Isaac the Syrian).

From 1930 to 1932, after a short period as Professor in the Theological Academy of St. Cyril and Methodius in Prizren, Serbia, he was an associate of Bishop Joseph (Cvijovich) of Bitola and the man tasked with reorganising the Church of the Carpatho-Russians in Czechoslovakia. The area had seen an increase in those espousing Uniatism, with previously converted Christians of those regions started their conversion back into the Eastern Orthodoxy.

Nikolaj Velimirović, John Maximovich of Shanghai and San Francisc o, and Popović crossed paths in Bitola.The young Maximovich (a Russian of Serbian ancestry) was Popović's assistant at the theological seminary there, and Velimirović was the Bishop of Ohrid, Macedonia.

Belgrade Popović was chosen in 1934 as professor of dogmatics at the Theological Faculty of St. Sava in Belgrade. As a professor at the University of Belgrade, he was one of the founders in 1938 of the Serbian Philosophical Society along with a number of noted Belgrade intellectuals.

He was also the professor of dogmatics at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Belgrade from 1934 until 1945, until World War II. In 1945, with the establishment of the communist state and state atheism, his anti-communism and efforts to convert others to Christianity had little place.

Communist regime After World War II, Popović was considered ineligible by the communist government to continue as a professor at the seminary. Together with a few fellow professors, he was ousted from the Faculty in 1945. Popović spent 31 years in the Ćelije Monastery under the continuous surveillance of the Communist police. The Communists limited his public appearances within monastic confines. While Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović never returned to Yugoslavia after the World War II, Popović actively participated in the organization of the Serbian Orthodox Church. That was perhaps because unlike Velimirović, Popović was not a bishop but a hieromonk.

Until the end of his life, Popović was a dedicated creator, and it is no wonder that his work is considered as "a great contribution to the Orthodox theology" and he himself as "the secret conscience of the Serbian Church and the entire martyr's Orthodox religion", according to John N. Karmiris, the Greek academician. His example has been invoked by the Church of Greece Synod, in the strict sense, which banned prayers with members of other Christian denominations.

Popović died the day after his birthday, on the day of the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March by the Julian Calendar).

Works The Philosophy and Religion of F.M. Dostoevsky (1923), Dogmatics of the Orthodox Church, I-III (1932, 1935, 1980) The Progress in the Death Mill (1933) The Foundations of Theology (1939) Dostoevsky on Europe and Slavism (1940) Philosophical Abysses (1957) The Man and the God-Man (1969 in the Greek language) Hagiographies of the Saints, I-XII (1972–1977) The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism (1974, in the Greek and Serbian languages, 2001, in English, Lazarica Press UK) Praznične besede Pashalne besede Nedeljne besede Svetosavlje kao filozofija života Put Bogopoznanja Setve i žetve Druge besede Akatisti Tumačenje Svetog Jevanđelja po Mateju Tumačenje Svetog Jevanđelja po Jovanu Tumačenje poslanica Svetog Jovana Bogoslova Tumačenje poslanica prve i druge Korinićanima Svetog apostola Pavla Tumačenje poslanice Efescima Tumačenje poslanice Filipljanima i Kalošanima Svetog apostola Pavla Tumačenje poslanice Galatima I-II Tumačenje poslanice Solunjanima Svetog apostola Pavla