A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Biljana D. Obradović and John Gery

Biljana D. Obradović, a Serbian-American poet, translator, and critic has lived in Greece, India, and the United States. She is associate professor of english at Xavier University of Louisiana, in New Orleans.

She has two collections of poems, Frozen Embraces and Le Riche Monde. Her poems also appear in Three Poets in New Orleans and in anthologies and magazines, such as Like Thunder: Poets Respond in Violence in America, Key West: A Collection, Poetry East, Bloomsbury Review, Prairie Schooner, and The Plum Review.

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In addition to her own poetry, other works include her Serbian translation of John Gery's American Ghosts: Selected Poems, Stanley Kunitz's The Long Boat, Fives: Fifty Poems by Serbian and American Poets, A Bilingual Anthology, and a collection of Bratislav Milanovic's poems in The Unnecessary Chronicle. She also reviews books for World Literature Today and others.


Биљана Д. Обрадовић рођена је 1961. године у Београду, дипломирала је енглески језик на Филолошком факултету у Београду, пре тога је ишла у америчку основну школу у Солуну, а енглеску гимназију завршила је у Индији. Једно време је предавала енглески језик у школи "Милица Павловић", а онда је отишла у Америку, где је 1995. године докторирала на креативном писању. На Хавијер Универзитету у Луизијани предаје креативно писање и преводи збирку песама свога супруга Џона Герија "Амерички дух". У Србији је објавила две збирке песама, двојезично, на српском и енглеском: "Замрзнути загрљај" и "Богат свет". Биљана и Џон Гери имају сина Петра.


John Gery's poetry, criticism, and reviews have appeared throughout the United States and Europe, including in Callaloo, the Iowa Review, New Orleans Review, Paideuma, Prairie Schooner, and West Branch.

He has also been a collaborative translator of works in serbian, armenian, chinese, and french. A research professor of english at the University of New Orleans, he directs the Ezra Pound Center for Literature, Brunnenburg, Italy. He was a research fellow at the University of Minnesota and a Fulbright fellow at the University of Belgrade.

Among Gery's books of poetry are Charlemagne: A Song of Gestures, The Enemies of Leisure, American Ghost: Selected Poems (English-Serbian, translated by Biljana Obradovic), Davenport's Version, and A Gallery of Ghosts.

He lives in New Orleans with his wife, poet Biljana Obradovic, and their son Petar.


SA

 

People Directory

Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich

Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich
SERBIAN ORTHODOX APOSTLE TO AMERICA
by Hieromonk Damascene (Christensen)
St. Herman of Alaska Monastery, Platina, California

 

 

1. An Apostle of Universal Significance

Born during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich has the distinction of being the first person born in the United States of America to be ordained as an Orthodox priest,[1] and also the first native-born American to be tonsured as an Orthodox monk. His greatest distinction, however, lies in the tremendous apostolic, pastoral, and literary work that he accomplished during the forty-eight years of his priestly ministry. Known as the "Father of Serbian Orthodoxy in America,"[2] he was responsible for the founding of the first Serbian churches in the NewWorld. This, however, was only one part of his life's work, for he tirelessly and zealously sought to spread the Orthodox Faith to all peoples, wherever he was called. He was an Orthodox apostle of universal significance.

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Publishing

The Church at Prayer

by Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra

Publisher’s note

Many readers of the addresses of Elder Aimilianos, which have been published in the five-volume series, rchimandrite Aimilianos, Spiritual Instructions and Discourses (Ormylia, 1998-2003), have frequently expressed the wish for an abridged and more accessible form of his teaching. In response, we are happy to inaugurate a new series of publications incorporating key texts from the above-mentioned collection. Other considerations have also contributed o this new project, such as the selection of specific texts which address important, contemporary questions; the need for a smaller, more reader-friendly publication format; and the necessity for editing certain passages in need of clarification, without however altering their basic meaning.

Above all, the works collected in this volume reflect the importance which the Elder consistently attached to prayer, spirituality, community life, worship, and liturgy. Thus the experientially based works "On Prayer", and "The Prayer of the Holy Mountain", which deal primarily with the Prayer of the Heart, appear first, followed by the summary addresses on "The Divine Liturgy", and "Our Church Attendance". These are in turn followed by the more socially oriented discourses on "Our Relations with Our Neighbor", and "Marriage: The Great Sacrament". Finally, the present volume closes with the sermons on "Spiritual Reading" and "The Spiritual Life", which in a simple and yet compelling manner set forth the conditions for "ascending to heaven on the wings of the Spirit".

It is our hope that The Church at Prayer will meet the purpose for which it is issued and will serve as a ready aid and support for those who desire God and eternal life in Him.