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

Vlade Divac

A first round pick of the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1989 NBA draft, Vlade Divac went on to become one of the first European players to have an impact on the NBA.

In 1985, Vlade Divac was one of 15 young boys from Slovenia, Bosna, Serbia, Montenegro, Croatia and Macedonia that won the gold medal in the University Games. This would prove to be a basketball team that is considered among the best ever assembled. They went on to win a gold medal at the European Junior Championships in 1986, a gold medal at the FIB A World Junior Championships in Bormio, Italy in 1987 (defeating Team USA twice in that tournament), and a silver medal representing Yugoslavia at the 1988 Olympics.

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After being drafted by the Lakers in 1989, Divac went on to enjoy a 16 year tenure as one of the game's best centers. A highly popular figure on and off the court, he put together an impressive resume playing for the Lakers, the Charlotte Hornets and the Sacramento Kings.

He started his career by being named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team and he finished it having joined Hakeem Olajuwon and Kareem Abdul-Jabaar as the only players in NBA history to amass 13,000 points, 9,000 rebounds, 3,000 assists and 1,500 blocked shots.

Along the way he also managed to lead Yugoslavia's teams to a silver medal at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, gold medals at the 1990 and 2002 FIBA World Championships, and gold medals at the 1989, 1991 and 1995 European Championships.

In the early morning hours on September 16th, 2005 a truck driven by Divac arrived at an emergency response center hosted by St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston, Texas. The truck contained items collected by volunteers in Sacramento, various items such as paper plates, paper towels, toilet paper, baby diapers, wipes, baby formula, baby food, school supplies and toys; donations which would provide a little comfort and normalcy to children and families who had traveled far from their homes in search of safety.

But Vlade Divac was no ordinary volunteer. In conjunction with an organization he helped found, he put together the collection effort in Sacramento. That organization is Group Seven, a Children's Foundation that provides care for children who suffer from isolation, poverty and displacement. The founding members of Group 7 include: Vlade Divac, Predrag Danilovic, Aleksandar Djordjevic, Zarko Paspalj, Zeljko Rebraca, Dejan Bodiroga, and Zoran Savic. These athletes have joined together to offer care and comfort to children suffering from the isolation, poverty and displacement inherent to the break-up of Yugoslavia. 

He has also worked on projects for the International Orthodox Christian Charities, another organizer of the Sacramento volunteer efforts. He has helped the IOCC provide half a million dollars in humanitarian assistance to his homeland since 1997. For his years of distinguished service in support of the humanitarian mission of IOCC, he received their Good Samaritan Award.

Divac also created a fund through the St. John Foundation to help raise money for children affected by the war in Yugoslavia. 

He and his wife have four children, two of which are war orphans, from Bosnia and Kosovo.


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People Directory

James Scully

James Scully is the author of 10 books of poetry, including Donatello’s Version (Curbstone Press/Northwestern University Press, 2007), four book-length translations, the seminal essay collection Line Break: Poetry as Social Practice (Curbstone Press/ Northwestern University Press, 1988/2005), and Vagabond Flags: Serbia & Kosovo: Journal, Scrapbook & Notes (Azul Editions, 2009). The founding editor of Art on the Line series (Curbstone Press, 1981-1986), he has been a key figure in the movement to radicalize the theory and practice of American poetry—in how it is lived as well as in how it is written.

Born in 1937 in New Haven, CT, Scully lives in Vermont with his wife, Arlene. They’ve been married since 1960 and have a son, John, and a daughter, Deirdre. His awards include a National Defense Fellowship 1959-1962; an Ingram Merrill Foundation Fellowship (Rome, Italy 1962-63); the Lamont Poetry Award 1967 for The Marches; the Jenny Taine Memorial Award 1971 for translation; a Guggenheim Fellowship (Santiago, Chile 1973-74); National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships 1976-77 and 1990; the Islands & Continents Translation Award 1980; and the Bookbuilders of Boston Award 1983 for book cover design.

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Publishing

On Divine Philanthropy

From Plato to John Chrysostom

by Bishop Danilo Krstic

This book describes the use of the notion of divine philanthropy from its first appearance in Aeschylos and Plato to the highly polyvalent use of it by John Chrysostom. Each page is marked by meticulous scholarship and great insight, lucidity of thought and expression. Bishop Danilo’s principal methodology in examining Chrysostom is a philological analysis of his works in order to grasp all the semantic shades of the concept of philanthropia throughout his vast literary output. The author overviews the observable development of the concept of philanthropia in a research that encompasses nearly seven centuries of literary sources. Peculiar theological connotations are studied in the uses of divine philanthropia both in the classical development from Aeschylos via Plutarch down to Libanius, Themistius of Byzantium and the Emperor Julian, as well as in the biblical development, especially from Philo and the New Testament through Origen and the Cappadocians to Chrysostom.

With this book, the author invites us to re-read Chrysostom’s golden pages on the ineffable philanthropy of God. "There is a modern ring in Chrysostom’s attempt to prove that we are loved—no matter who and where we are—and even infinitely loved, since our Friend and Lover is the infinite Triune God."

The victory of Chrysostom’s use of philanthropia meant the affirmation of ecclesial culture even at the level of Graeco-Roman culture. May we witness the same reality today in the modern techno-scientific world in which we live.