St Justin - A New Orthodox Saint
On April 29, 2010 the Holy Synod of the
Orthodox Church of Serbia proclaimed the glorification as a saint of the
Church, Father Justin Popovich, considered by many as one of the greatest
Orthodox theologians of the 20th century but who combined his
intellectual ability with a life of asceticism, spiritual warfare and prayer.
Father Justin was born the son of a priest
in Southern Serbia on the Feast of the Annunciation, 1894. He was one of several generations of priests
in his family and their family name “Popovich” means “family or son of a priest”.
At baptism he was named Blagoje after
the Feast of the Annunciation (Blagovest means Annunciation or Good News). He grew up in a pious Orthodox home,
frequently visiting with his parents the nearby Prohor Pchinjski
Monastery. His greatest love was for the
Bible and from the age of 14 he carried a Bible with him and read three
chapters each day. He completed his
studies at the Theological Faculty of St. Sava in Belgrade in 1914 where he
came under the influence and instruction of the holy bishop St. Nicholas
Velimirovich who fell-asleep in the Lord in Pennsylvania in 1956. Upon his graduation his deepest desire to
fully consecrate his life to the service of the Lord by taking monastic vows
but the declining health of his parents and the outbreak of World War I delayed
him. During World War I he served as a
student nurse with the Serbian army finally becoming a monk on January 1, 1916,
taking the name “Justin” after the Holy Martyr Justin the Philosopher. After a year of study in Russia he entered
the Theological School in Oxford, England at the encouragement of his mentor
St. Nicholas. His dissertation was not
accepted due to his truthful critique of Western humanism, secularism, and
Roman Catholicism. His English
professors demanded that he change his views, which for Fr. Justin was
inconceivable and he left Oxford without a diploma. Even at this relatively young age, he was
known as a man of prayer and asceticism.
A young Anglican monk who became his friend, and who observed his
ceaseless prayer and tears said:
I only now
understand that the repentance and faith you have is something different from what we understand in the West and how
we’ve been taught. Now I see
that we in the West don’t know what repentance is.
He was
able to complete his Doctorate in Theology in 1926 at the University of Athens
and became a professor of theology in the seminary in Prizren and later in
Belgrade. During this period he was ordained
to the priesthood and it was seen that throughout the ordination service tears
streamed down his face. It is notable
that one of his close associates in ministry was Father John Maximovitch, who
later became Archbishop John, a miracle-working man of prayer who fell asleep
in the Lord in San Francisco and was glorified as a saint in 1994. Father Justin’s theological accomplishments
are vast. He translated and published a
12-volume edition of the Lives of the Saints since he believed that the lives
of the saints show how Orthodoxy is lived.
He wrote a three volume complete catechism and explanation of the
Orthodox Faith along with several other books.
To
Carpatho-Russia
From 1930 to 1932 he worked closely with
Bishop Joseph (Cvijovich) of Bitola who traveled to Carpatho-Russia to
re-organize the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Church which was in the process of
freeing itself from centuries of Uniate domination. He was offered an appointment as a bishop in
the young Carpatho-Russian Church but he declined, preferring to return to his
teaching.
With the Communist ascent to power in
Serbia following World War II, Father Justin was viewed as a threat to their
atheistic ideology since he was zealous in converting intellectuals to faith in
Jesus Christ. He was ousted from his
position as a professor and told never to return to the university. After traveling in exile from monastery to
monastery, he settled in the Chelije Monastery in Western Serbia in 1948 and
remained in this women’s monastery for the remainder of his life. While he continued his intellectual pursuits,
producing an immense number of books and scholarly articles, his theology was
not simply an intellectual exercise of the mind but was a lived reality in his
life. He worked alongside the nuns in
restoring the monastery and establishing a farm while he continued a life of
prayer and asceticism: battling against
the sinful passions, not indulging his bodily desires, fasting to learn self
control. One of his spiritual children
remembered:
After
dinner Fr. Justin would go to his workroom where he would read Holy Scripture,
the Holy Fathers, and pray. He slept
very little. He would get up very early
and go to the monastery church to serve the Divine Services. Following this he would eat breakfast and
return to his work – studying, translating, and writing. When he grew old, he would rest for a short
while after lunch and then return to his work.
Everyday would bring guests to see Fr. Justin, who would find time to
give them precious spiritual advice.
When the evening arrived, he would return to the Church to serve, after
which the holy mystery of Confession would be offered to all.
Father
Justin remained in the Chelije monastery, under constant surveillance by the
Communist party police, until his
falling-asleep in the Lord on his 85th birthday, March 25,
1979. Numerous miracles have been
documented and recorded, both during his lifetime and at his grave after his
death such as healings, flashes of brilliant and divine light from his tomb and
many conversions of unbelievers. Holy
Father Justin, pray to God for us!
Tropar (Tone 4)
As
Orthodox sweetness and divine nectar, Venerable Father you flowed
into the hearts of the faithful as a wealth;by your
life and teachings you revealed yourself to be a
living book of the Spirit, most wise Justin; therefore
pray to Christ the Word that the
Word may dwell in those who honor you.
Teachings of St. Justin
Orthodoxy is ascetic effort and it is life, and
it is thus by effort and by life that Orthodoxy’s mission is broadcast and
accomplished. The development of
asceticism – this ought to be the inward mission of our Church among our
people. The parish must become an
ascetic focal point. But this can only
be achieved by an ascetic priest. Prayer
and fasting, the Church-oriented life of the parish, a life of liturgy: Orthodoxy holds these as the primary ways of
effecting rebirth in its people. The
parish, the parish community, must be regenerated and in Christ-like and
brotherly love must minister humbly to Him and to all people, meek and lowly
and in a spirit of sacrifice and self-denial.
And such service must be imbued and nourished by prayer and the liturgical
life. This much is groundwork and
indispensable. But to this end there
exists one prerequisite: that our
bishops, priests, and our monks become ascetics themselves.
The Lives of the Saints are nothing else but the
life of the Lord Christ, repeated in every saint to a greater or lesser degree
in this or that form. More precisely it
is the life of the Lord Christ continued through the saints, the life of the
incarnate God the Logos, the God-man Jesus Christ who became man. This was so that as man He could give and
transmit to us His Divine life; so that as God by His life He could sanctify
and make immortal and eternal our human life on earth.
The Bible is in a sense a biography of God in
this world. In it the Indescribable One
has in a sense described Himself. All
that is necessary for this world and for the people in it – the Lord has stated
in the Bible. In it He has given the
answers to all questions. There is no
question which can torment the human soul, and not find its answer, either
directly or indirectly in the Bible. Man
cannot devise more questions than there are answers in the Bible. If you fail to find the answer to any of your
questions in the Bible, it means that you have either posed a sense-less
question or did not know how to read the Bible and did not finish reading the
answer in it.
- Father Edward Pehanich
