Dositej Vasić (
Serbian Cyrillic
The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, t ...
: Доситеј Васић; 5 December 1878 – 13 January 1945) was the first
Serbian Orthodox
The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Christian denomination, Christian churches.
The majori ...
Metropolitan of Zagreb and a victim of the
.
Biography
Dragutin Vasić was born on 5 December 1887 in Belgrade. He graduated and acquired the master's degree in 1904 at the
Kiev Theological Academy. After that, he finished philosophy at the universities of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
and
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...
.
The
Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church
The Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr, Свети архијерејски синод Српске православне цркве, Sveti arhijerejski sinod Srpske pravoslavne crkve) serves by Church constitution as the executive bod ...
elected him the
bishop of Niš in May 1913. During the
Great War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
he did not want to leave
Niš
Niš (; sr-Cyrl, Ниш, ; names in other languages) is the third largest city in Serbia and the administrative center of the Nišava District. It is located in southern part of Serbia. , the city proper has a population of 183,164, while ...
, so the enemy found him in his residence and interned him as a prisoner of war. Immediately after that, 150 priests were brutally slaughtered. He returned from the internment camp to his Eparchy in 1918. He was Bishop of Transcarpathia
and vice-president of the
Holy Synod
In several of the autocephalous Eastern Orthodox churches and Eastern Catholic Churches, the patriarch or head bishop is elected by a group of bishops called the Holy Synod. For instance, the Holy Synod is a ruling body of the Georgian Orthodox C ...
and took part in the negotiations with the
Patriarchate of Constantinople
The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople ( el, Οἰκουμενικὸν Πατριαρχεῖον Κωνσταντινουπόλεως, translit=Oikoumenikón Patriarkhíon Konstantinoupóleos, ; la, Patriarchatus Oecumenicus Constanti ...
about the re-establishment of the
Serbian Patriarchate in 1920. Upon the establishment of Zagreb Bishopric, the bishop-martyr Dositej was ordained its first metropolitan.
He died on 13 January 1945 as a consequence of the brutal torture he had suffered in Zagreb prison, in which Roman Catholic
nun
A nun is a woman who vows to dedicate her life to religious service, typically living under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience in the enclosure of a monastery or convent.''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. X, page 599. The term is o ...
s participated as well. He was buried in the churchyard of the Serbian Orthodox Monastery of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin in Belgrade or ''Manastir Vavedenja Presvete Bogorodice in Belgrade''.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasic, Dositej
1878 births
1945 deaths
Clergy from Belgrade
Serbian Orthodox clergy
20th-century Eastern Orthodox bishops
Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church
Serbian torture victims
Burials at Serbian Orthodox monasteries and churches
Serbs of Croatia
Metropolitanate of Zagreb and Ljubljana