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

Bishop Jovan (Mladenović)

(1994–2002)

The Divine provision brought the spiritual father of the Monastery Studenica, Bishop Jovan, to continue the work left by the equally most esteemed and humblest spiritual father of the Monastery Hilandar, Bishop Chrysostom.

As an accomplished monastic with the spiritual wealth he attained in the Studenica Monastery, he enriched his flock and clergy. Very soon he gained respect and confidence of his clergy and the faithful.

Bishop Jovan was born in 1950 of father Radojko and mother Stana Mladenović in the village of Dobrace, near Arilje, Serbia. He finished elementary school in his village. At the age of twelve, he went to the Klisura Monasteiy where he remained for one year and then went to the Studenica Monastery. He attended the monastic school in the Ostrog Monastery from 1967 until 1969. He was ordained a hierodeacon in the Studenica Monastery on April 25, 1971. He retained his baptized name of Jovan. Rt. Rev. Vasilije, Bishop of Žiča ordained him as hieromonk in 1973. He graduated from St. Sava Seminary in Belgrade in 1974 and from Theologcial College in Belgrade in 1980.

In 1986 he was elevated to a protosyngelos and in 1989 to an archimandrite.

He was appointed Abbot of the Monastery Studenica on July 26, 1981. He remained at that position until 1993, when he was elected a titular Bishop of Tetovo, vicar to His Holiness, and charged with administering Serbian Orthodox Dioceses in the former Yugoslav Republic Macedonia. At its regular session in May 1994 the Holy Bishops’ Assembly elected Bishop Jovan as a Bishop of the Western Diocese. He was installed to the See of the Western American Diocese Bishops in the Cathedral of St. Stevan in Alhambra, California by His Holiness Patriarch Pavle on September 18, 1994.

In 2000, two missions, two monasteries, and two sketes have been received under Bishop Jovan’s omophorion (in California St. Herman monastery, St. Xenia skete, St. Andrew mission in Redding, St. John mission in Oregon, St. Paisius monastery in Arizona, and two skeres in Alaska.) Most of the people in these missions and monasteries are American converts to Orthodoxy.


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Željko Đukić

TUTA Theatre Chicago's Zeljko Djukic Awarded Fulbright Scholar Grant and Names Successor

Zeljko Djukic, who, in 2001, co-founded the TUTA Theatre Chicago as Artistic Director, will now assume the role of Founding Director. He has elected TUTA Ensemble Member Jacqueline Stone to assume the role of Artistic Director starting September 1.

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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."