Mateja Matejić ( sr-Cyrl, Матеја Матејић; 19 February 1924 – 27 July 2018) was a

Serbian American Serbian Americans () or American Serbs (), are Americans of ethnic Serb ancestry. As of 2023, there were slightly more than 181,000 American citizens who identified as having Serb ancestry. However, the number may be significantly higher, as ...

writer, translator, anthologist,

Serbian Orthodox The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodox Christian churches. The majority of the populat ...

priest, and

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

Emeritus of

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...

and Literatures at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

Biography

Matejić was born in

Smederevo Smederevo ( sr-Cyrl, Смедерево, ) is a list of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the Podunavlje District in eastern Serbia. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, about downstream of the Serbian capital, ...

in what was then the

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a country in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 to 1929, it was officially called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, but the term "Yugoslavia" () has been its colloq ...

(today Serbia) and educated there. As a seminarian at

Bitola Bitola (; ) is a city in the southwestern part of North Macedonia. It is located in the southern part of the Pelagonia valley, surrounded by the Baba, Nidže, and Kajmakčalan mountain ranges, north of the Medžitlija-Níki border crossing ...

during the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia, he left the country and completed his seminary education in a

displaced persons camp A refugee camp is a temporary settlement built to receive refugees and people in refugee-like situations. Refugee camps usually accommodate displaced people who have fled their home country, but camps are also made for internally displace ...

Eboli Eboli (Neapolitan language, Ebolitano: ) is a town and ''comune'' of Campania, southern Italy, in the province of Salerno. Eboli, an agricultural centre, is renowned for its olive oil and dairy products, most notably the famous buffalo mozzarel ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

. In 1949, at another camp in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, he married Ljubica Nebrigić of

Srem Syrmia ( Ekavian sh-Latn-Cyrl, Srem, Срем, separator=" / " or Ijekavian sh-Latn-Cyrl, Srijem, Сријем, label=none, separator=" / ") is a region of the southern Pannonian Plain, which lies between the Danube and Sava rivers. It is ...

(who preceded him in death on 17 April 2016). He was ordained as a Serbian Orthodox priest in a camp in 1951. He and his young family emigrated to the United States in 1956. As a priest, he founded two parishes and encouraged and physically contributed to the building of two places of worship, the Church of St. George in

Monroe, Michigan Monroe is the largest city in Monroe County, Michigan, United States, and its county seat. The population was 20,462 at the 2020 census. The city is bordered on the south by Monroe Charter Township, but the two are administered autonomously. M ...

(where he served from 1956 to 1967), and the Church of St. Stevan of Dečani in Columbus, Ohio (where he served from 1967 until his retirement in 1990). He graduated from the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

where he received his Ph.D. Mateja Matejić was a founder of the Hilandar Research Library scientific project at the Ohio State University in Columbus, where he taught Slavic languages since 1968. He was the first director of the ''Resource Center for Medieval Slavic Studies'' and founder and director of the publishing house ''Kosovo'', as well as the editor of the ''Paths of Orthodoxy'' magazine. A translator and

anthologist In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and ge ...

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

and foreign

poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...

, he had also authored several books of poems and Eastern Orthodox history, two of which are acclaimed: ''An Anthology of Medieval Serbian Literature'' (as co-author) and ''The Holy Mount and

Hilandar The Hilandar Monastery (, , , ) is one of the twenty Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos in Greece and the only Serbian Orthodox monastery there. It was founded in 1198 by two Serbs from the Grand Principality of Serbia, Stefan Neman ...

monastery''. In September 2000 he received two awards from the

Serbian Orthodox Church The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...

, the ''St. Sava Medal'' (the highest), presented to him in

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

, and the next day a ''gramata'' from Patriarch Pavle in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

Works

* Na stazama izbeglickim: srpsko pesnistvo u izbeglistvu 1945-1968 (On Exile Paths: Serbian Poetry Diaspora 1945–1968) ''in Serbian'' co-author Bor. M. Karapandzic (1969) * A Brief History of the Russian Orthodox Church ''in English'' * Biography of Saint Sava ''in English'' (1976) * An Anthology of Medieval Serbian Literature ''in English'' co-author Dragan Milivojevic (1978) * The Holy Mount and Hilandar Monastery ''in English'' (1983) * Relationship between the Russian and the Serbian Churches through the centuries ''in English'' (1988)
Kosovo and Vidovdan After Six Hundred Years
''in English'' (1992) * Troubles in Chiiandar ''in Serbian'' (1994) * Scriptural instructions for Christian life ''in English'' (1997) * Hilandar manuscript / Hilandarski rukopis ''in English and Serbian'' (1998) * Remaining Unchanged ''in Serbian'' (1998) * The oldest Christian liturgy ''in English'' (1999) * A festschrift for Leon Twarog ''in English'' co-editor Irene Masing-Delic (2001)

External links

The Hilandar Research Library (''website'')
has the largest collection of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

Slavic

manuscripts A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand or typewritten, as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced in some indirect or automated way. More recently, the term has c ...

microfilm A microform is a scaled-down reproduction of a document, typically either photographic film or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original d ...

in the world. {{DEFAULTSORT:Matejic, Mateja 1924 births 2018 deaths Writers from Smederevo Serbian Orthodox clergy Ohio State University faculty University of Michigan alumni Yugoslav emigrants to the United States