Who is Metropolitan Chrysostom? His parents forbade him to study to be a priest and Irinej personally enthroned him.

Bishop Chrysostom, Photo: Serbian Orthodox Church

After Patriarch Irinej left us after a difficult fight with the corona virus, the Holy Synod decided that until the election of a new patriarch, the Church will be officially administered by Metropolitan Chrysostom of Dabro-Bosnia (Jević).

His Eminence Mr. Chrysostom, Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia, was born on March 4, 1952 in Vođenica near Bosanski Petrovac to parents Nikola and mother Rosa, b. Radošević. He finished primary school with great success and exemplary behavior in 1966/67.

Even as an elementary school student, he publicly expressed at the time an “inappropriate” intention to “study for a priest.” When asked why she said that in front of the teacher and the students, who laughed at it, she very often says, “I didn’t even know why I said that. It was probably God’s will and God’s calling.” . But his decision to “study to be a priest” met with opposition from his family, resulting in a year-long hiatus from his regular education.

School 1968/69. He enrolled in a five-degree seminary at Krka monastery, which he completed with great success. 1973. As a 4th grade seminary student, he received a monastic vow. He was ordained a monk by the blessed memory of Bishop Stefan Boca, of Dalmatia, and then of Zice, on the eve of the feast of the Birth of the Blessed Mother of God (The Little Lady), on September 20, 1971, giving him the name Chrysostom.

In 1973/74. He completed his military service in Kraljevo at the Jarčujak barracks, from where, as he himself puts it, “he very often ‘sneaked’ into the Žiča monastery.” Despite all the problems he had as a priest at the JNA, he remembers with great pleasure the moments he spent in the Žiča monastery with the blessed memory of Bishop Vasilije of Žiča, who was and continued to be his role model in every way , then the meeting in the monastery of Žiča with Saint Ava Justin (Popović). , spent hours with Zice’s elders, the late Dositej and Gerasim, who were a great support to him during those difficult military months.

With the blessing of Bishop Stefan, in 1974 he enrolled in part-time studies of theology in Belgrade at the Faculty of Theology, but due to his duties in the Diocese of Dalmatia and the parish of Skradin, which he served, he stopped studying. part-time at the Belgrade Faculty of Theology.

Patriarca Irinej, Photo: AP Photo / Darko Vojinovic

As early as 1975, the Holy Synod of Architects sent him to regular theological studies in Bucharest (Romania) on the recommendation of Bishop Stefan, but he never went there for political reasons (the Dapcevic Informer affair).

Thanks to this “matter”, in late January 1976, Bishop Stefan sent him to Thessaloniki, Greece, to learn Greek and prepare for enrollment in full-time theological studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He studied at the Theological Faculty of Theology in Thessalonica from 1976 to 1980. He graduated with great success in November 1980.

During all his studies in Thessalonica, he regularly went to Holy Mount Athos and stayed there, mainly in the Hilandar Monastery and other monasteries on Mount Athos. He was especially spiritually attached to the elder Nikanor (Savić), the then first epitrope of Hilendarski and the elder. She learned a lot from him, and old Nikanor’s prayer was that he would stay in Hilandar after finishing his studies. His request and wish were then felt and accepted by the young hieroglyphic Chrysostom, and immediately after taking the oath at the end of his studies, he went to Hilandar.

However, due to the insistence of the then Dalmatian bishop Nikolaj (the blessed metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia) to return to the Krk monastery and become a teacher at the seminary there in early 1981, Heronk Chrysostom returned to his vows at the monastery of Krk where she was from September 1981 to September 1991. She was a teacher.

The Holy Synod of Bishops elected him as the first Bishop of the newly created Diocese of Bihać-Petrovac (1990), and he was enthroned by decision of the Holy Synod of Architects on August 4, 1991 in the church of St. Sava in Drvar

It received the administrative diocese of Bihać-Petrovac on August 22, 1991, from the hands of the former administrator of the Bishop of Dalmatia, Mr. Nikolaj Mrđa.

By decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, on June 1, 2013, the former Bishop of Bihać-Petrovac, Chrysostom, was elected to the vacant chair of the Bishops of Zvornik-Tuzla.

His Eminence the Metropolitan Chrysostom of Dabro-Bosnia, after four years of arch-pastoral work in the Diocese of Zvornik-Tuzla, was elected Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia by decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church on May 24, 2017 .

On the throne of the Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia, the newly elected Metropolitan Chrysostom succeeded the blessed Metropolitan Nikolaj.

He was enthroned on the throne of the Metropolitan of Dabro-Bosnia on September 3, 2017. at the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Mother of God in Sarajevo. The Serbian holy liturgy was presided over by the late Serbian Patriarch Irinej. The enthronement ceremony was performed by His Holiness the Patriarch of Serbia, Mr. Irinej.

His Metropolitan Eminence Chrysostom is the 61st Archbishop on the throne of the Dabro-Bosnia Metropolitans since the founding of the Metropolitanate in 1220, which was founded by St. Sava.