Drvar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, May 13, 2026
Photo: spc.rs
A saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church, canonized in 2025, was celebrated for the first time over the weekend. St. Ilije of Trubar, a hieromartyr, was honored on May 9, at the Church of St. Sava in Drvar, on his feast day.
The celebrations began on May 8 with the reception of the icon of St. Ilije and evening Vespers led by His Grace Bishop Sergije of Bihać and Petrovac, along with several priests, including Fr. Nikola Radovančević, a descendant of St. Ilije, who came from the New Gračanica-Midwestern American Diocese, reports the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Students from the St. Arsenije Sremac Seminary in Sremski Karlovci provided the liturgical singing.
St. Ilije Rodić served as parish priest of Trubar and was killed in April 1942, thrown into one of the pits near Trubar on Bright Wednesday during World War II. He died in the fratricidal conflict between partisan and Chetnik forces during the uprising against the Axis occupation. Bp. Sergije noted in his homily that Fr. Ilije “didn’t want to abandon his people even though he knew his days were numbered.”
Photo: spc.rs
The bishop emphasized that the canonization “is a call for earthly reconciliation among those who in Heaven surely sing together to the Creator.” He expressed hope that “the prayers of St. Ilije the hieromartyr would renew brotherly love among us, healing wounds from the not-so-distant past.”
Fr. Nikola Radovančević, who serves at St. Nicholas Church in South Milwaukee’s Cudahy neighborhood, spoke about his grandfather, whom he never met but who’d always been central to his upbringing. He shared that his late mother Dara “spoke more about impressions than memories” of her father, since she was too young when he was martyred, but “always spoke about the feeling that she was loved by her father.”
Fr. Nikola recounted how years ago, someone revealed to him the name of a person in his spiritual community who’d been involved in his grandfather’s arrest, torture, and execution. He felt anger and a desire for revenge, but then thought of that man’s grandchildren, to whom he taught religious education. “Whatever happened in the past—that wasn’t their sin,” he said. “Then God’s work was revealed: a grandson who’d been denied even acquaintance with his own grandfather was now sharing life-giving treasure with the grandchildren of the one who’d been a torturer, helping them walk the path of salvation.”
Fr. Nikola Radovančević, the grandson of St. Ilije, attended the feast. Photo: spc.rs
St. Ilije was canonized at the session of the Council of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church in May 2025, at the proposal of Bp. Sergije. At the same session, the Martyrs of Rmanj (commemorated September 10) and the Martyrs of Garavice and the Bihać-Petrovac region (commemorated July 27) were also entered into the Church’s calendar of saints.
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