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

Sanja Beštić

Sanja Bestic (Сања Бештић, Sanja Beštić) was born in Belgrade, Serbia on June 13, 1982. The civil war in the former Yugoslavia broke out when Sanja was ten (10) years old. She would continue to live through that war and the two (2) that followed. Sanja felt the greatest impact of the wars during the Belgrade bombings in 1999. Nonetheless, she attended the Zemunska Gimnazija for high school while simultaneously studying at the renowned theater studio and acting school run by Mika Aleksic, the famous theater arts professor.

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In 2001, Sanja applied to and was accepted by the Faculty of Dramatic Arts for their prestigious theater-directing program. The program receives on average four hundred (400) applications each year but only accepts four (4) students. There, Sanja studied under Professor Ivana Vujic. During her time as a student, Sanja was the assistant director to many famous directors of the former Yugoslavia and Serbia. She has worked with: Dusan Jovanovic, Ljubisa Ristic, Slobodan Umnkovski, Aleksandar Popovski, Filip Gajic, Gorcin Stojanovic, Egon Savin, Ivana Vujic and Jug Radivojevic . Her work as a student also included productions with the Association of Non-Verbal Theaters in Belgrade, Serbia. She was member of the Svan Theater, the only theater where non-verbal performances set to music were put on. There she performed and directed. One of her plays, the “Play Against Violence”, showcased the life and emotions of Serbians during the Belgrade bombings. Sanje Bestic explored different schools of acting. She was professionally trained in artistic coaching and theme building while doing a fellowship at the Moving Academy for Performing Arts in Amsterdam. She also did intensive work with the Theater of Shadows where she learned to move, act and express herself as a shadow behind a white screen. Simultaneously, she directed the artistic venture and was involved in all steps of the production at the Theater of Shadows. Sanja believes that one is not going to be a good director unless she has experienced all aspects of a production. Sanja also spent some time studying in the US. She studied at The Michael Chekhov Acting Studio in New York City. There she continued to study non-verbal theater expression with an emphasis on movement and the use of the body as an expressive instrument. She also studied acting at the Lee Strasburg Institute for Theater and Film. It was also in New York City that Sanja directed “Canary Soup,” her first professional production. “Canary Soup” played at The Kraine Theater, an off-Broadway theatre, located in New York City’s East Village. The story about male/female relationships and the dilemma of whether or not to marry played to sold-out audiences from October - November, 2004. In 2006, Sanja continued her success. She produced and directed the play “Two Fools in Love” at the Mata Milosevic Theater in Belgrade. The play was rich with the universal themes found in keeping the innocence of first love, relationships, suffering in the world today and continuing to be honest with oneself and everyone else.

In addition to her work as a theater director, Sanja has put her artistic ability to work in the corporate world. Her resume includes work for Serbian advertising and marketing companies. She has directed television commercials and short films. Her work included TV commercials for Henkel (a German company that is the equivalent of the US Proctor & Gamble), Societe Generale (a French bank), and Vegeta (Podravka) (a Coatian seasoning). In addition to that, she worked for Iteam Events, an international marketing agency, where she directed and produced stage events at various theaters, ballrooms and other venues.

Sanja takes the most pride, though, in her humanitarian work. She has worked with The Beogradski Igracki Center (BIC), a non-profit organization that provides an artistic setting to work with children having special needs. Sanja has also put her talent into action in the fight against breast cancer. Sanja worked together with Nebosa Babic, one of Serbia’s most acclaimed photographers, to produce a video for the “You are Unique Campaign,” a campaign dedicated to raising breast cancer awareness. The video showcased Serbian celebrities who survived breast cancer or were close to someone who suffered from breast cancer. The Weeping Game by Ben Akiba (aka Branislav Nusic) is Sanja’s third Off-Brodway production. Sanja also directed , Touch my Knees by David Albahari, The Government Inspector by Nikolai V. Gogol, Canary Soup by Milos Radovic, and Two Fools in Love by Dusko Radovic, and Painkillers by Neda Radulovic.

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Олга Иванова Лазовић

Олга Иванова Лазовић (1898—1988) била је америчка списатељица, плесачица, композитор, филозоф и учитељица црногорског порекла. Била је унука српског војводе, кучког јунака и писца Марка Миљанова и супруга америчког архитекте Френка Лојда Рајта.

Олга Иванова Лазовић рођена је 27. децембра 1898. године на Цетињу од оца Ивана Лазовића и мајке Милице. Олгина мајка Милица је била храбра ћерка војвода Марко Миљанов која је јула 1914. када је објављена општа мобилизација, као Милунка Савић, узела пушку и пријавила се као добровољац у Српску војску претварајући се да је мушкарац. Са српском војском је прошла све најважније битке и ратишта.

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Notes On Ecumenism

Written in 1972 by St. Abba Justin Popovich, edited by Bishop Athanasius Yevtich, translated from Serbian by Aleksandra Stojanovich, and proofread by Fr Miroljub Ruzich

Abba Justin’s manuscript legacy (on which Bishop Athanasius have been working for a couple of years preparing an edition of The Complete Works ), also includes a parcel of sheets/small sheets of paper (in the 1/4 A4 size) with the notes on Ecumenism (written in pencil and dating from the period when he was working on his book “The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism”; there are also references to the writings of St. Bishop Nikolai [Velimirovich], short excerpts copied from his Sermons, some of which were quoted in the book).

The editor presents the Notes authentically, as he has found them in the manuscripts (his words inserted in the text, as clarification, are put between the slashes /…/; all the footnotes are ours).—In the appendix are present the facsimiles of the majority of Abba’s Notes which were supposed to be included in his book On Ecumenism (written in haste then, but now significantly supplemented with these Notes. The Notes make evident the full extent of Justin’s profundity as a theologian and ecclesiologist of the authentic Orthodoxy).—The real Justin is present in these Notes: by his original language, style, literature, polemics, philosophy, theology, and above all by his confession of the God-man Christ and His Church. He confesses his faith, tradition, experience and his perspective on man, on the world and on Europe—invariably in the Church and from the Church, in the God-man Christ and from Him, just as he did in all of his writings and in his entire life and theologizing.