Petar Jovanović

Petar Jovanović (baptised as Pavle Jovanović; 18 February 1800 in Ilok – 22 September 1864 in Sremski Karlovci) was the Metropolitan of Belgrade, head of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Principality of Serbia from 1833 until 1859.

Biography

Early life Born in Ilok (present-day Croatia), he graduated from the Karlovci Gymnasium and the Clerical High School of Saint Arsenije in Sremski Karlovci. Then he studied philosophy in Szeged. After graduating in 1819, he became a teacher at the Karlovci Gymnasium. In 1830 he went to Serbia to become secretary of the Metropolitan of Belgrade Melentije Pavlović, and at the same time secretary of the Supreme National Court, and then personal secretary of the Prince Miloš Obrenović. He was a married man; his wife died shortly after they moved to Serbia.

Election as Metropolitan After the death of Metropolitan Melentije in 1833, Prince Miloš offered Pavle Jovanović the office of the Metropolitan of Belgrade, after he refused the first candidate he considered, Metropolitan of Caesarea Cappadocia Gerasimos. Miloš wanted the Serb to be the new head of the newly established Metropolis. In October 1833, he took his religious vows in front of the Bishop Nikifor Maksimović of the Eparchy of Užice. In the following days he was ordained successively to deacon and presbyter, then he was given the dignity of archimandrite. On 20 September 1833, he was already archimandrite at the court of Prince Miloš in Kragujevac. On 6 December 1833, he was consecrated as bishop by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Constantius I.

Metropolitan Petar Jovanović had a solid general and theological education, so he was especially involved in the organization of schools for the clergy. He created in 1834 metropolitan seminary textbooks and invited lecturers from abroad, talented students were directed to religious schools in the Russian Empire. In 1834 he developed a new law on marriage, providing that only men aged 17 and over, and women aged 14 and over, with parental consent and their own, would be able to marry. Consent to marriages of men over 50 and women over 40 years of age, as well as to the fourth marriage, was to be approved by a bishop. He also sought to improve the discipline among the Serbian clergy, which had not been high in previous years. This was the result of the earlier subordination of the canonical Serbian lands to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The bishops of Greek origin operating in Serbia did not care about the education of the lower clergy and they cared mainly for their own enrichment. He wanted to improve the material situation of the clergy, so he created the funds for the benefit of them. He tried to sort out the situation in monasteries, removing alcoholics, assassins, thieves and homosexuals from them. He liquidated the smallest monasteries, and determined the amount of state salary for monks. The new Metropolitan of Belgrade became his former student, the Bishop of Šabac Mihailo Jovanović.