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It was the moment of the continuation of the construction of the Temple of Saint Sava, the appearance of the Memorandum, the rise of Slobodan Milosevic, the journey to the relics of Emperor Lazar … Almost overnight, the participation of figures from the church can be seen in lay symposia and scientific meetings. His sermons are being mentioned more and more frequently by the general public, especially the younger bishops Atanasij Jeftić, Irinej Bulović, and Amfilohije Radović.
For nearly two decades, in certain Belgrade circles, the latter was spoken of as a higher-educated monk, a monk legend in which the story of Morača, a student of the famous Justin Popović, and a fellow at prestigious European universities was merged. And the intellectual world of the capital will be convinced of the accuracy of this legend upon his return in 1976, when he first became an assistant professor and then a full professor at the Faculty of Theology of St. John the Theologian in Belgrade.
AFTER graduating from the Faculty of Theology, he went first to Bern and then to Rome, where he received his master’s degree from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in 1965. From there he went to the Orthodox Church of Greece, stayed there for seven years and decided to become a monk. : received an angelic image and a priestly rank. In Athens, he defended his doctorate at St. Gregory Palamas, who attracted the attention of the European theological public at the time. After spending a year on the Holy Mountain, the journey took him to Paris and he became a professor at the Orthodox Institute of St. Sergius in Paris.
In the City of Light, after meeting and dating Matija Bećković, in 1976 she decided to definitely return to the country. The same Matija Bećković, in whose poem Amfilohije is the double of Christ, in which he is nailed to the cross and crucified, “so that Christ on the cross may be at least a little revoked”, so that he can rest and rest from the plight of the crucified. Bećković evoked another painful situation in which Amfilohije joyfully, sacrificing himself, replaces Christ. He runs before him and receives stones thrown at the Son of God by an evil mob: “Each stone for him, one less for Christ.”
Matija spoke often of the beginnings of his friendship with Risto Radović, as the secular name of the Metropolitan says. He remembers it, he says, from his student days, when they met in the Student City, where Risto came to visit his friends from Morača. He studied two faculties, classical philology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Theology. “It seemed to me,” says Bećković, “that the first faculty served him as a cover for this second and more important faculty.”
It also reminds Amfilohije of the time he was in France. She met him when she was in Paris for the first time. That was the moment when Amfilohije left an unusually strong impression on him, when he experienced it as the most beautiful thing in front of his eyes at that moment.
“When I came back to Belgrade and called my mother,” Bećković said, “she asked me what was the most beautiful thing I saw in Paris. I told her the most beautiful thing I saw in Paris was Amfilohije Radović.” This is probably why the great poet called his friend from his early student days a Moravian clairvoyant in a farewell letter from a friend.
ELEM, just at that moment, in early 1989, Patriarch Herman fractured his hip and it was the beginning of a disease that lasted until the end of his life. Metropolitan Jovan of Zagreb and Ljubljana was appointed guardian of the throne of the Serbian patriarchs on the last day of June of the same year. He replaced the sick patriarch. However, word spread that Amfilohije Radović would occupy the patriarchal chair.
And that otherwise a hot summer, as it can only be in Belgrade, a round table on the relationship between the Serbian church and the Serbian people was organized in the Patriarchate building. The room was too small to accommodate all the participants, journalists and other curious people. Everyone could hardly wait for rest. Several journalists immediately surrounded Amfilohije, who were curious to verify the truth of the story, if he would replace German. Most likely, at that time no one knew in detail how the Serbian Orthodox Church works and what the apostolic appeal is.
And Amfilohije, then already bishop of Banat with the canteen in Vršac, as he was, shaken and generally without a hair on his tongue, said briefly: “If it were up to me, I would rather go to Cetinje when the time comes.”
Thirty years later, when, as Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, he was Deputy Patriarch Pavle from 2007 until his death in 2009, other journalists asked him if he saw himself as the new patriarch, Amifilohije, and he replied: ” Montenegrins will not force me so easily. “
How Risto became Justinovac
IN THE FIRST year of college, Risto Radović lived in a dormitory, inside the seminary, in Karaburma. One day, news spread that Justin de Ćelija would attend the funeral of Anka Barlovac, a famous court lady. She was also Justin’s spiritual daughter between the two wars. And some of us are going to see it and hear it. And he really came, but, of course, accompanied by the police … And I remember his sermon when he bowed to the ground:
“Sister, greet Saint Sava and tell her that her name has been banished from her university and her character has been discarded.”
It was then that she saw him for the first time and that meeting played a crucial role in her life. After that, he went to his cell.
They corresponded while he was abroad. From Rome, he sent him a letter that he had finally decided to become a monk. He received a reply from Santa Ava to rejoice that he “saw himself from the point of view of eternity,” as he wrote. After Amfilohije’s doctoral thesis, he decided to stay on the Sacred Mountain and asked for Justin’s blessing. He received a letter: “However, he must return, both to us and to you.”
And to the question: Why wouldn’t you like to be a patriarch? – He said: Because this is my measure. On the other hand, to be honest, for the church in Montenegro. I feel like this is my calling and my calling …
YOUR wish to come to Cetinje will be fulfilled much sooner than you expected. On October 1, 1989, for the first time, he delivered a sermon in front of the monastery, during the transfer of the relics of King Nikola, and spoke the following words: “Today in Cetinje, ‘the ancestral souls have risen’. They rejoice and rejoice, because today we welcome in Cetinje the lord of Montenegro and Brdo, King Nikola I, the seventh and last ruler of the sacred lineage of Petrović, a branch of that lineage who, with his deeds and deeds, also He testified to the truth above, which we said was a measure of dignity. “
TWO months later, although the former Metropolitan Danilo Dajković was still alive due to his old age and serious illness, by decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Bishop Amfilohije de Banat was enthroned in December 1990 as Metropolitan of Montenegro- Primorje, Zeta-Brdo and Skenderija, Exarch of the Holy See, as well as the Archbishop of Cetinje.
Thus, Amfilohije, after more than three and a half decades of “exile”, returned to Montenegro and became her grandfather.
TOMORROW: Spark of Ćiro Radović’s house
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