His Grace Bishop Longin of New Gračanica and Midwest America was born on September 29, 1955 as Momir Krčo in the town of Kruscanje Olovo. His parents were Stanoje and Andja Jovanovic. He attended grade school in Olovske Luke from 1962 to 1970. He entered Three Hierarchs Seminary in Monastery Krka in 1970 and graduated in 1975.

During this time he was tonsured a monk and received the small schema as a fifth year student. The tonsuring was done by Bishop Stefan of Dalmatia on the eve of the school Slava of the Holy Three Hierarchs on February 11, 1975. At the Divine Liturgy on February 12th he was ordained a deacon by Bishop Stefan. On February 13th, he was ordained a priest (he was twenty years old at time of his priestly ordination.)

He entered the Moscow Theological Academy in 1975 where he graduated in 1979. From October 1980 to April 1981, he served in the Diocese of Zvornik-Tuzla as secretary of the Executive Board. He was also administrator of two parishes. On the decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops he was appointed as lecturer of the Holy Three Hierarchs Seminary in 1983 for two years.

Bishop Mitrofan Kodić, nee Radovan, was born on 4 August, 1951, in the village Ljuša, Šipovo, Bosnia, Yugoslavia. Radovan completed his elementary studies in 1966. He went to study further at the seminary in the Krka monastery in Croatia, Yugoslavia. At the same time, he entered the brotherhood of the monastery. In 1970, Radovan was tonsured to be a monk, and he was given the name Mitrofan on the eve of the Feast of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple (3 December/20 November). He was ordained to the Holy Diaconate by Bishop Stefan (Boca) of Žiča. In 1971, the Hierodeacon Mitrofan (Kodić) graduated from the seminary of the Krka Monastery, while on 6 January, 1974, he was ordained to the holy priesthood in the monastery by Bishop Stefan (Boca).

In 1975, the Hieromonk Mitrofan entered the Faculty of Theology in Bucharest, Romania. He completed his studies, and he graduated in 1977. He then returned to the Krka monastery. There, he was assigned to be a “trainee” (supplent) in the Seminary of the Three Holy Hierarchs in the Krka Monastery. In 1987, the Hieromonk Mitrofan was assigned to serve as the rector of the seminary.

For the last eleven years the ruling bishop of the Western American Diocese is Maxim (Vasiljević,) well known in academic circles since he holds several academic titles and is professor of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Belgrade. Maxim (secular name Milan Vasilje¬vić) was born on June 27, 1968 in Foča, Yugoslavia, into a family of a priest. His father Lazar is a priest and mother Radmila, nee Todorović.

After finishing elementary school in Sarajevo (1983), he studied Seminary school in Belgrade (finished in 1988), served the army, and enrolled into the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in the same city.

He was tonsured a monk in Tvrdos Monastery, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on August 18, 1996, by Bishop Atanasije of Herzegovia, who also ordained him a deacon (1996) and priest in 2001.

Bishop Maxim graduated from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the University of Belgrade in 1993. He completed his Masters of Theology at the University of Athens in 1996, and then three years later, in 1999, at the same University, he defended his doctorate in the field of Dogmatics and Patristics with the title, “Participation in God” in the Theological Anthropology of St. Gregory Nazianzen and St. Maximus the Confessor.

On 25 May 2016 the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church elected by acclamation Bishop Irinej of Australia and New Zealand to the Throne of Bishops of Eastern America following the election of Bishop Mitrophan of Eastern America to the Throne of Bishops of Canada.

He was born in 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, to his father Djuro and mother Milica (nee Svilar). His elementary and secondary education was completed in Cleveland, Ohio. After attending the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1973–1975, he attended St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania from 1975–1979, where he graduated with a Licentiate in Theology with the academic distinction maxima cum laude. In 1980 he enrolled in St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York and graduated in 1982 with a Master of Divinity degree with Honorable Mention for his master’s thesis Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich: A 1921 Mission to America. Following which, he entertained studies at the Athens Centre in 2000 and 2003 receiving levels I and II certificates in contemporary Greek language.

He spent most of his career in the field of education. He lectured as visiting fellow at Loyola University in Chicago and visiting fellow at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade. For many years he was the co-editor of The Path of Orthodoxy, the official publication of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the USA and Canada.

Bishop Georgije, baptized Djordje Djokić, was born on May 6, 1949 in the village of Crnjelovo, Bjeljina, of parents Krsto and Krunija. After elementary school he resided in the monasteries Tavna, Ozren and Kosijerevo. He completed monastic school in the Monastery of Transfiguration 1963/1964. From Savina Monastery he went to the Studenica Monastery and remained until 1966 when he went to School at the Ostrog Monastery. After finishing Monastic School he was tonsured into monastic rank at the Monastery Ozren on February 11, 1971 and was given the monastic name Georgije. He was ordained hierodeacon on February 15, 1971. In June 1971, he was appointed spiritual father of Tavna Monastery by Bishop Longin. From there he graduated from the Seminary in Sremski Karlovci and the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade. While in England, Fr. Georgije was appointed by Bishop Lavrentije to serve the parish of Sts. Peter and Paul in Derby, England. While there he was elected Bishop for the Canadian Diocese, on May 16, 1984. On June 8, 1984, he was consecrated a bishop by Patriarch German and installed in 1984 at the St. Nicholas Cathedral in Hamilton.

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.

The Odd Adventures of an Early Serbian Priest

Fr. Philip Sredanovich is one of the strangest parish priests I’ve ever run across in my research of Orthodoxy in America.

He was born in Montenegro in 1881. He seems to have been educated and married in Russia (the 1920 U.S. Census says that his wife was born in Russia). Fr. Philip came to America just after the turn of the 20th century. In 1908, he made headlines nationwide for his supposed invention of a device to travel around the earth without moving. From the Washington Post (12/11/1908):

Mateja Matejić (born 1924) (Serbian Cyrillic: Матеја Матејић) - Priest of Serbian Orthodox Church, emigrant since 1945, and the Professor Emeritus of Slavic languages and Literatures at Ohio State University. Matejic graduated from the Slavic Department in the USA where he received his Ph.D.

Mateja Matejić is a founder of the Chilandar scientific project at the Ohio State University in Columbus, where he has been teaching Slavic languages since 1968. He is a founder and director of the publishing house Kosovo, as well as the editor of the Path of Orthodoxy magazine.