A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

H.E. Mr. Vuk Jeremić, president of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly

Vuk Jeremić was elected President of the sixty-seventh session of the United Nations General Assembly on 8 June 2012. At the time of his election, he was serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Repubic of Serbia, an office he held starting on 15 May 2007.

Throughout his five years as Foreign Minister, Mr. Jeremić was actively engaged in the work of the United Nations, representing his country at key sessions of the General Assembly and the Security Council. He led the Serbian delegation at high-level segments of the United Nations Human Rights Council (2008, 2010 and 2011), at the annual General Conference of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and at high-level meetings of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations.

Mr. Jeremić also represented Serbia at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (Istanbul, 2011), the United Nations HighLevel Meeting on Nuclear Security (New York, 2011) and the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York, 2010).

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Elsewhere, Mr. Jeremić led his country’s delegation at high-level meetings of the African Union, the Organization of American States and the Non-Aligned Movement. In September 2011, he hosted a commemorative observance at the ministerial level for the fiftieth anniversary of the Non-Aligned Movement, in Belgrade.

During his term as Foreign Minister, Mr. Jeremić was actively involved with deliberations of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), participating in meetings of its Ministerial Council; informal meetings of OSCE foreign ministers (Almaty, Kazakhstan, 2010 and Corfu, Greece, 2009); and in the eleventh OSCE Summit that took place in Astana, Kazakhstan (2010).

In 2011 and 2012, Mr. Jeremić presided over a number of regional organizations of South-East Europe, including the Central European Initiative, the Adriatic Ionian Initiative and the Southeast Europe Cooperation Process. In this capacity, he addressed several special sessions of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna. During this period, Mr. Jeremić also served as head of the Migration, Asylum and Refugees Regional Initiative and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization.
Earlier, Mr. Jeremić chaired the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers (May to November 2007), representing the Committee before the Council’s Parliamentary Assembly. From 2008 to 2012, he headed his country’s delegation to all ministerial sessions of the Committee and addressed three sessions of the Council’s Forum for the Future of Democracy, in Sweden (2007), Armenia (2010) and Cyprus (2011).

In 2010 and 2011, Mr. Jeremić played a leading role in convening two groundbreaking conferences of foreign ministers, aimed at resolving the plight of refugees uprooted by the 1991-1995 crisis in the Western Balkans.

Mr. Jeremić began his career in public service as Adviser to the Minister of Telecommunications of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in the year 2000. In June 2003, he was appointed Adviser for Foreign Affairs to the Minister of Defence of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and in February 2004, he was appointed Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Democratic Party. Later that year, in July 2004, he became Senior Foreign Policy Adviser to the President of the Republic of Serbia, continuing in this capacity until taking up the position of Foreign Minister in May 2007.

Before entering the political sphere, Mr. Jeremić worked for a number of financial institutions in London, including Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, as well as for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Jeremić has lectured at major universities around the world, and participated in debates and discussions convened by think tanks and organizations focusing on global issues, including the Economist magazine, World Economic Forum, Chatham House, the Bled Strategic Forum, the Aspen Institute and the MEDays Forum of the Amadeus Institute. His opinion pieces have been published in major newspapers including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal.

Fluent in English, in addition to his native Serbian, Mr. Jeremić holds a Bachelor of Science degree in theoretical physics from Cambridge University (United Kingdom) and a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (United States).

Mr. Jeremić was born in Belgrade in 1975, and is married to Nataša Jeremić. An avid tennis fan, he is currently president of the Serbian Tennis Federation.

Source: United Nations web-site

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People Directory

Tom Jurich

By Sandi Radoja

[This article originally appeared in the American Srbobran, April 5, 2017]

LOUISVILLE, KY – On an unseasonably hot February day, Tom Jurich welcomed us to his third floor office on the campus of the University of Louisville. We were 2-1/2 hours early, but his door swung open wide despite our inability to jump time zones correctly.

Born and raised in Southern California, Tom Jurich of SNF Lodge #95-Lovcen-Los Angeles, was apologetic for the heat as if it was his fault. “We don’t turn the air conditioning on this early,” he said, an explanation we already heard from his receptionist who called her desktop fan her “new BFF.” We were immediately at ease, and the friendliness of the entire office far outweighed the heat.

It was Mercia Martich of Northridge, California, who sent us in the direction of the Tom Jurich story initially. She said he was a SNF member and someone to hoot about, adding, “He is not only successful, but a fine gentleman and a family man, too.”

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Publishing

Holy Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan

by Bishop Athanasius (Yevtich)

In 2013 Christian world celebrates 1700 years since the day when the Providence of God spoke through the holy Emperor Constantine and freedom was given to the Christian faith. Commemorating the 1700 years since the Edict of Milan of 313, Sebastian Press of the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church published a book by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, Holy Emperor Constantine and the Edict of Milan. The book has 72 pages and was translated by Popadija Aleksandra Petrovich. This excellent overview of the historical circumstances that lead to the conversion of the first Christian emperor and to the publication of a document that was called "Edict of Milan", was originally published in Serbian by the Brotherhood of St. Simeon the Myrrh-gusher, Vrnjci 2013. “The Edict of Milan” is calling on civil authorities everywhere to respect the right of believers to worship freely and to express their faith publicly.

The publication of this beautiful pocket-size, full-color, English-language book, has been compiled and designed by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, a disciple of the great twentieth-century theologian Archimandrite Justin Popovich. Bishop Athanasius' thought combines adherence to the teachings of the Church Fathers with a vibrant faith, knowledge of history, and a profound experience of Christ in the Church.

In the conclusion of the book, the author states:"The era of St. Constantine and his mother St. Helena, marks the beginning of what history refers to as Roman, Christian Empire, which was named Byzantium only in recent times in the West. In fact, this was the conception of a Christian Europe. Christian Byzantine culture had a critical effect on Europe; Europe was its heir, and then consciously forgot it. Europe inherited many Byzantine treasures, but unfortunately, also robbed and plundered many others for its own treasuries and museums – not only during the Crusades, but during colonial rule in the Byzantine lands as well. We, the Orthodox Slavs, received a great heritage of the Orthodox Christian East from Byzantium. Primarily, Christ’s Gospel, His faith and His Church, and then, among other things, the Cyrillic alphabet, too."