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

Milos Rastovic

Milos Rastovic was born in Sombor, Serbia where he finished elementary and Gymnasium. His father, Ilija Rastovic, was a Professor in Gymnasium high school and poet who published eight books of poetry. Zivka Rastovic, his mother, worked in the insurance business. Rastovic earned a Bachelor Degree at the University of Belgrade, Department of Philosophy, with a work: “Eternal Recurrence of the Same in Nietzsche’s Philosophy.” After graduation, he was a Professor of Philosophy for eight years in high schools in Sombor. While teaching, he created thefirst philosophy website of its kind in Serbia to make philosophy more interesting and approachable for students. He earned his Masters Degree in Philosophy at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA, U.S.A. He is a member of many professional societies in philosophy and political sciences and Slavic studies. He has presented papers at numerousacademic conferences and publishedarticles and reviews of books in the United States, Canada, and many European countries.

He currently works as the Cultural Outreach Coordinator for the Serb National Federation in Pittsburgh, PA--the oldest Serbian Fraternal Benefit Society in the United States since 1901. During his work at the Serb National Federation, he studied Serbian tradition, history, and culture as well as organizing a Serbian Movie Festival at the University of Pittsburgh. He has presented many books including the "Christian Heritage of Kosovo and Metohija" and given interviews to National Public Radio (NPR), Voice of America, National Television of Serbia, etc.

Through his merit, Novak Djokovic, World Tennis Champion from Serbia, and Emir Kusturica, famed movie director, became honorary members of the Serb National Federation in 2015 and 2016. He is a regular contributing author of the American Srbobran, the oldest continuously published Serbian newspaper in the world since 1906. He was the screenwriter for the documentary film “Tesla’s People” about history of Serbs in the United States. As a Cultural Outreach Coordinator, he has lectured throughout the United States about the history of Serbs in America.

He is a Board Member of the Tesla Science Foundation in Philadelphia and promotes Tesla’s nameamong many events and people as well as worked for the event “200 Years of Serbs in the United States.”

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Svetlana Rakic

A native of former Yugoslavia, Dr. Svetlana Rakic earned her master’s degree in art history from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and her doctorate in art history from Indiana University. She is the author of several books on Serbian Orthodox icons and the interrelatedness of modern art and religious thought. Most recently, she has published the book Art and Reality Now: Serbian Perspectives (New York: A. Pankovich Publishers, 2014).

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Sailors of the Sky

A conversation with Fr. Stamatis Skliris and Fr. Marko Rupnik on contemporary Christian art

In these timely conversations led by Fr. Radovan Bigovic, many issues are introduced that enable the contemporary reader to deepen and expand his or her understanding of the role of art in the life of the Church. Here we find answers to questions on the crisis of contemporary ecclesiastical art in West and East; the impact of Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism and Abstract painting on contemporary ecclesiastical painting; and a consideration of the main distrinction between iconography and secular painting. The dialogue, while resolving some doubts about the difference between iconography, religious painting, and painting in general, reconciles the requirement to obey inconographic canons with the freedom essential to artistic creativity, demonstrating that obedience to the canons is not a threat to the vitatlity of iconography. Both artists illumine the role of prayer and ascetisicm in the art of iconography. They also mention curcial differences between iconography in the Orthodox Church and in Roman Catholicism. How important thse distinctions are when exploring the relationship between contemporary theology and art! In a time when postmodern "metaphysics' revitalizes every concept, these masters still believe that, to some extent, Post-Modernism adds to the revitatiztion of Christian art, stimulating questions about "artistic inspiration" and the essential asethetic categories of Christian painting. Their exceptionally wide, yet nonetheless deep, expertise assists their not-so-everday connections between theology, ar, and modern issues concerning society: "society" taken in its broader meaning as "civilization." Finally, the entire artistic project of Stamatis and Rupnik has important ecumenical implications that aswer a genuine longing for unity in the Christian word.

The text of this 94-page soft-bound book has been translated from the Serbian by Ivana Jakovljevic, Fr. Gregory Edwards, and Andrijana Krstic. Published by Sebastian Press, Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Contemporary Christian Thought Series, number 7, First Edition, ISBN: 978-0-9719505-8-0