Bitola, July 4, 2024
Photo: liturgija.mk
On June 30, in the Cathedral of St. Demetrius in Bitola, North Macedonia, Nun-Martyr Stephanida of Bitola and Skadar was glorified among the saints during Divine Liturgy.
During the Holy Liturgy, which was celebrated on June 30, 2024, by His Holiness Serbian Patriarch Porfirije and His Beatitude Archbishop Stefan of Ohrid and Macedonia in the Cathedral of St. Demetrius in Bitola, the solemn act of the canonization of St. Venerable Martyr Stephanida of Bitola and Skadar was performed.
Photo: liturgija.mk
A host of hierarchs and clergy from the Church of North Macedonia and other Local Churches participated in the solemn service. These included Bishop George of Michalovce-Košice (from the Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia), Bishop Joanikije of Montenegro and the Littoral, Bishop Teodosije of Raška-Prizren, along with priests of the Bulgarian, Polish, and Czech and Slovakia Orthodox Churches. Serbian Patriarch Porfirije also concelebrated, pronouncing several prayers in the local language.
Photo: liturgija.mk
His Holiness Porfirije gave a word. “By communicating with each other in the language of the body in the light and joy of Pentecost, we certainly understand each other because we are one Body and one Blood, the Body of Christ, His Church. Three thousand people gathered in Jerusalem from all over but did not know the Hebrew language yet they understood the Apostle Peter speaking to them in Hebrew as if he were speaking in a language familiar to them. This was because they had faith in the living God, love for God, and a quest for truth, fullness, perfection, and holiness. The Holy Spirit spoke through the Apostle Peter, and they all understood each other. Similarly, brothers and sisters, by speaking the same language, the language of the Holy Spirit, the language of Orthodoxy, the language of the Church, and the language of love, we not only understand each other but are truly one, because we partake of the same Body of Christ and His same Blood.”
***
Stefka, the future St. Stephanida, was born in the early twentieth century (the exact date is not known) in Vraka near Skadar, to her father Andrija, a wealthy and respected man, and her mother Jovana, who was humble and devout. Stefka herself was very pious, and lived the solitary, prayerful life of a monastic even before her tonsure.
In 1933, 250 Serbian families, including Bishop Viktor of Skadar and Stefka with her family, were forced to leave Skadar. They settled in Metohija in Drenovec near the Dečani Monastery. There, Stefka continued her ascetic life, living in a small, secluded house.
In the Dečani Monastery, she met Holy Hierarch Nikolaj Velimirović of Žiča. Stefka lived in Drenovec until she moved in 1940 to what is now North Macedonia, and lived in Bitola.
When the Bulgarian army entered Bitola during World War II, some left for Serbia, but Stefka chose to remain in the monastery, where she then received the monastic tonsure.
During the war, there was a blackout order in Bitola; but Nun Stephanida, who was entirely “not of this world” paid no attention to it. When soldiers saw a lampada burning in her monastic cell, they entered and beat her so viciously that blood was spattered all over the walls. When the sisters asked what had happened to her, she said that the devil had come to her. She soon died from her ordeal, on Good Friday, April 1/14, 1944. She was buried on Holy Saturday in the Krstoar Monastery of St. Christopher, above the village of Krstoar, near Bitola.
