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

Bishop Georgije (Djokić)

(1984–2015)

Bishop Georgije, baptized Djordje Djokić, was born on May 6, 1949 in the village of Crnjelovo, Bjeljina, of parents Krsto and Krunija. After elementary school he resided in the monasteries Tavna, Ozren and Kosijerevo. He completed monastic school in the Monastery of Transfiguration 1963/1964. From Savina Monastery he went to the Studenica Monastery and remained until 1966 when he went to School at the Ostrog Monastery. After finishing Monastic School he was tonsured into monastic rank at the Monastery Ozren on February 11, 1971 and was given the monastic name Georgije. He was ordained hierodeacon on February 15, 1971. In June 1971, he was appointed spiritual father of Tavna Monastery by Bishop Longin. From there he graduated from the Seminary in Sremski Karlovci and the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade. While in England, Fr. Georgije was appointed by Bishop Lavrentije to serve the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul in Derby, England. While there he was elected Bishop for the Canadian Diocese, on May 16, 1984. On June 8, 1984, he was consecrated a bishop by Patriarch German and installed in 1984 at the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Hamilton.

Bishop Georgije revived Church life in the Canadian Diocese, by organizing several new Church School Congregations, founding the Federation of Serbian Sisters, establishing the religious magazine Istočnik, pub-lished quarterly in both languages. He founded the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Milton, near Toron-to, as the spiritual center of the Canadian Serbs. The Diocese purchased a home in one of the exclusive are-as of Toronto at 5A Stockbridge Avenue for the sum of $235,000. The Diocesan offices were located in the new residence. On the initiative of Bishop Georgije, the facilities in the lower level of the residence were adapted into a chapel. The frescos in the chapel are made by iconographer Hieromonk Pavle Kalanj, from Monastery Gradiste in Montenegro. The iconostasis and other items in the Chapel were done by Canadian Serb carpenters. The Chapel is dedicated to Three Holy Hierarchs and was consecrated on February 15, 1986.

Bishop Georgije filled vacancies in the parishes, organized new Church School Congregations and pro-vided spiritual care for every Serbian Community, large or small. He successfully motivated Church School Congregations to build new churches, church centers and parish residences, as well as to renovate and ex-panding existing ones.

During his thirty one years of archpastoral work the Diocese grew from eight parishes to thirty and the same number of the parish priests. As a crown of the accomplishments is the Transfiguration Monastery in Milton, Ontario. Bishop Georgije retired per the decision of the Holy Assembly of Bishops and currently resides in Milton, Canada.


SA

 

People Directory

Stevan Mandarich

Stevan Mandarich, 90, a retired Navy rear admiral and decorated combat veteran of World War II who lived in Washington until the early 1980s, died Dec. 6 in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in a retirement home where he was being treated for Alzheimer's disease.

Adm. Mandarich, who was born in Arizona and raised in California, was a 1933 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. In the early days of World War II, he flew from the carrier Wasp in the Atlantic. Later in the war, he flew a Hellcat in the battle for Tarawa and commanded an air group on the carrier Lexington. Along the way, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross and three awards of the Air Medal.

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Publishing

Christ - The Alpha and Omega

The Serbian Orthodox Diocese of Western America is pleased to announce the publication of an outstanding book by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, a disciple of the great twentieth-century theologian Archimandrite Justin Popovich. Bishop Athanasius' thought combines adherence to the teachings of the Church Fathers with a vibrant faith and a profound experience of Christ in the Church.

Christ - The Alpha and Omega is the first of a planned collection of works of contemporary Serbian theologians. It is an anthology of Bishop Athanasius' articles which have appeared in Serbian, Greek, French, English and Russian. Focusing on themes central to Christian patristic Triadology, Ecclesiology and Anthropology, the book reveals the ultimate purpose of man and the universe, and speaks of how each of us can realize this purpose within the divine-human community of the Orthodox Church. Bishop Athanasius reminds us that the God-man Jesus Christ is the Beginning and the End of all things, and that we must seek our own end, goal, and fulfillment in Him.

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