St. Nicholas (Velimirovich) of South Canaan

Nikola Velimirovich was born into a large peasant family in the village of Lelich, Serbia on December 23, 1880. Young Nikola began his education in Lelich and later went to the capital city, Belgrade, to attend St. Sava Theological Seminary. He graduated in 1902 at age 22.

He entered the graduate Theological Faculty (or school) in Bern, Switzerland, in1905 and in 1909 received a doctorate in sacred theology – the first of many doctoral degrees he would earn. Later that year, he returned to Serbia and was tonsured a monk at the Monastery of Rakovica, receiving the name Nikolai. He was soon ordained to the priesthood and eventually elevated to the rank of Archimandrite. Two years after his ordination, he joined the faculty at his alma mater, the St. Sava Theological Seminary in Belgrade and taught there until 1915. During his four summer vacations from St. Sava's, Archimandrite Nikolai went to study in Russia.

When World War I broke out, Archimandrite Nikolai was sent to England on a diplomatic mission. While he was there, he lectured at Oxford University and received a doctorate in philosophy at the university's King College. At the same time, he received honorary doctorates from Cambridge University and Glasgow University. He returned to Serbia in 1919 and was elected and consecrated a bishop that same year, at age 39. He was appointed to the Diocese of Zicha and later the Diocese of Ochrid.

He spent 1921 and 1922 as a missionary bishop in America, creating and administering the Serbian Orthodox Diocese in the United States and Canada. After his two years in America, he returned to Ochrid, where he resumed the archpastorate of his two Serbian dioceses. That is where he remained until 1934, when he went back to Zicha until the collapse of Yugoslavia in World War II.

During World War II, the Nazis occupied Yugoslavia. Civil war broke out, and Serb fought Serb. In addition, hundreds of thousands of Orthodox Christians were tortured or massacred by the Croatians under the direction of the Nazis. Hosts of other Serbs were sent to Nazi death camps. Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo and Bishop Nikolai were sent to the infamous Dachau concentration camp, where – although they suffered horribly – they both survived the war.

Years later, Bishop Nikolai said that he had once spoken with an elder on Mount Athos. Young Nikolai asked the monk” “Father, what is your main spiritual exercise?” The elder replied, “The perfect visualization of God's presence.” “Ever since then,” Bishop Nikolai said, “I tried this visualization of God's presence. And as little as I succeeded, it helped me enormously to prevent me from sinning in freedom, and from despairing in prison. If we kept the vision of the invisible God, we would be happier, wiser, and stronger in every walk of life.”

As the war was nearing its end, Bishop Nikolai and Patriarch Gavrilo were liberated from Dachau. Patriarch Gavrilo returned to Yugoslavia, but Bishop Nikolai did not, having found that he was unwelcome in Serbia. During the years that followed the war, Church leaders were not given the freedom to preach the Gospel and teach the Faith in Yugoslavia. So it was from abroad that Bishop Nikolai felt he could best serve the faithful of his Church, and chose to remain in foreign exile.

He first went to England, but within a year, in April 1946, he decided to go again to America. This time he was a refugee, without any official position in the Church. He arrived at the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in New York City. He also taught at the Serbian Orthodox Seminary in Libertyville, Illinois until 1949. Bishop Nikolai moved to the Russian Orthodox St. Vladimir's Seminary in New York and later to St. Tikhon's Monastery and Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania. There he would teach, preach, continue to write, and pursue his won studies. In addition to degrees from Bern and Oxford, Bishop Nikolai received doctorates from Halle in Germany, the Sorbonne in Paris, and Columbia University in New York.

He began as a professor at St. Tikhon's Seminary, but eventually he was appointed rector. At that time, most of the courses were taught in Russian, but Bishop Nikolai chose only to teach in English. Other faculty members disagreed with his decision, and some were resentful of him, but the bishop knew that it was important for the students to hear lectures in their own language. On most occasions, he preached his sermons in English in the monastery church at St. Tikhon's so that everyone – the monks, the seminarians and the faithful laity who attended the Liturgy – would be able to understand him. The people often complained about the use of English, but he would answer: “You have learned and heard enough. It is time for the seminarians to learn something.”

One of his students wrote of Bishop Nikolai: “He sighed a great deal when he prayed and before class he would spontaneously pray for us and the seminary. He knew the strengths and weaknesses of each seminary student. At times he would sit on a warm evening and play his flute, and tears would stream down his face as he remembered his beloved Serbia. He also survived the Dachau prison camp. When the students would complain about the food, he would say, ‘You don't know what bad food is. We would search through the garbage cans at Dachau.' But beyond that, he would not mention his sufferings.”

Bishop Nikolai's health had been weakened by his captivity at Dachau. Despite his ill health, however, he remained in constant contact with the faithful of the Serbian and other Orthodox churches. He taught his seminary classes with enthusiasm, power and deep insight. He often traveled to the Serbian Church House in New York, and there received his spiritual children, his students, his fellow monks, and all who knew him came to regard him with love and respect.

Bishop Nikolai fell asleep in the Lord on Sunday, March 18, 1956, at St. Tikhon's. Ten days later, his body was moved for burial to the Serbian Monastery of St. Sava in Libertyville, Illinois, where it remained until April 24, 1991. At that time, his body was taken back to Yugoslavia, where he lay in state in many towns and cities. According to his own final wishes, the bishop's body was finally transferred to his native village of Lelich in Serbia on May 12, 1991. His remains joined those of his parents and his nephew, Bishop Jovan Velimirovich. In 1987, Bishop Nikolai was glorified by the local diocese as a saint of the Church.

From Portraits of American Saints, George Gray and Jan Bear,  Diocese of the West 1994