Nikodim Milaš

Nikodim Milaš ( sr-cyr, Никодим Милаш), born Nikola Milaš, (16 April 1845 – 2 April 1915), was a Serbian Orthodox Church bishop, theologian, university professor and academic. He was a writer, one of the most respected experts on Eastern Orthodox canon law, and less on church history. As a canon lawyer in Dalmatia, he defended the Serbian Orthodox Church against the state. He was an academic and polyglot. Milaš authored a number of books, including the criticized ''Orthodox Dalmatia'' (1901). His bibliography reportedly includes more than 180 works.

Beyond his work in canonical and ecclesiastical law, he was dedicated to countering Catholic proselytism and state efforts which downplayed the Serbian Orthodox heritage. He was one of the founders of the Serb Party in Dalmatia and served in the Diet of Dalmatia (1889-1901). However, in some of his historiographical writings, he portrayed the two denominations in a simplistic manner and fabricated certain historical statements about the history of the Orthodox Church, which was used during the rise of Serbian nationalism and breakup of SFR Yugoslavia.

Biography

Early life

Milaš was born at Šibenik in Kingdom of Dalmatia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) on 16 April 1845, as an illegitimate son of Serb Orthodox father Trifun Milaš who came to the city from an area around Vrlika and Italian Catholic mother Maria Valmassoni from Šibenik. He was baptized on 24 April as Nikola Ante Valmassoni (later added Milaš) in the Roman Catholic church, and three years later on 8 May 1848 in the Eastern Orthodox church in Šibenik according to the will of his father (then living in Istanbul in fear of Maria's family feud). His mother eventually converted to Orthodoxy and married his father on 14 July 1851 in an Orthodox church.

Education

He attended local primary school held by Franciscans in the Italian, and then the lower Dominican gymnasium of St. Dominik in Zadar, fourth class in Jesuits gymnasium in Dubrovnik, and maturity again in Zadar (1863). He went on to study theology in the Serbian Orthodox Theological School at Sremski Karlovci (1866), then philosophy in Vienna, but after a year, he moved to the Kievan Theological Academy and Seminary (then part of Imperial Russia), graduating in 1871. He received a master's degree in Canon Law and Church History, and wrote his dissertation ''Nomocanon of Patriarch Photius''.

Early activity

Upon his return home, he was appointed as an assistant professor at the Seminary in Zadar (i.e. the Theological Orthodox Institute), a year later full professor of the canon law and practical theology, and soon afterwards dean of the seminary. Professor Nikola Milaš was tonsured in 1873 at the Dragović monastery, and given the monastic name of Nikodim. Because of his fluency in German, French, Italian, Russian, as well as Greek and Latin, he was able to read primary sources and contribute to the field of history. He advocated for the Serbian language in secondary schools, organized and helped educational and humanitarian foundations and engaged in missionary work fostering Orthodoxy and Serbian identity in Dalmatia. He also directed fiery passion at what he saw as proselytization by the Catholic Church's high priesthood.

Beginning in 1873, he worked on raising national awareness and unity among the Dalmatian Serbs with his friend Ljubomir Vujnović, which according to Milaš, was also a reaction to the Dalmatian Croats who were denying the Serbs their national identity. Being one of the founders of the Serb People's Party (Dalmatia), his public proclamations caused him further enmity among Croats, but also many Serbs, as recalled in his memoirs. He opposed Sava Bjelanović's liberal idea that the Serbian national identity could be defined without confessional identity, and was often in conflict with Bjelanović over the editing of the ''Srpski list'' newspaper and other matters. Milaš led the conservative right-wing branch of the party.

In the early 1880s, when Josip Juraj Strossmayer called for the unification of South Slavs with the veneration of Cyril and Methodius as a common Slavic heritage, and on his Catholic initiative embarked on a multinational Slavic pilgrimage to Rome, it sparked a transnational and transconfessional debate, mostly among Serbs. Milaš published a monograph "Sts. Cyril and Methodius and the Truth of Orthodoxy", opposing the Catholic church's initiatives, and described the brothers as "great warriors of Orthodoxy ... in the battle against the enemies of Orthodoxy".

When Bosnia and Herzegovina came under Austrian rule, he believed that according to canon law, all Serbian church metropolitans in Bosnia should come under jurisdiction of the Metropolitanate of Karlovci. In 1886 went to be rector of the Belgrade Seminary ('' Bogoslovija'') in Serbia. He tried to reform it to the modern standards. In early 1888 he was back in Zadar where he completed two major works that same year: ''Roman Catholic Propaganda: its foundation and rules today'' (1889) and his six-volume treatise on the Serbian Orthodox Church entitled ''Orthodox Church and Canon Law'' (1890).

After the death of bishop Stefan Knežević, he was elected Bishop of Dalmatia and Istria (1890-1912), and appointed Dean and Professor of canon law at Zadar's Theological Orthodox Institute where he taught from 1890 to 1910. His most valuable historical work ''Documenta spectantia historiam ortodoxae dioeceseos Dalmatiae et Istriae a XV usque ad XIX saeculum'' (vol. I) was published in 1899, with an unpublished second volume.

Late activity and death

Throughout his tenure, as opposed the unification of the Orthodox and Roman Catholic church; he was under pressure from anti-Serb Orthodox authorities and forced to endure aggressive Roman Catholic proselytism. This motivated him to research and write the history of the Orthodox Church and Serbs in Dalmatia, published in 1901 as a book ''Pravoslavna Dalmacija'' (''Orthodox Dalmatia''). However, the work riddled with many exceptional claims, and received mixed critical reception.

He continued to be politically active in the right-wing sector of the Serb Party, serving in the Diet of Dalmatia (1889-1901). Because of his national engagement he was targeted by the secret police and members of the intelligentsia. With the on-going Croat-Serb Coalition (1905), Milaš rejected to participate in the so-called Zadar Resolution (14 November 1905), possibly due to his rising unwelcoming attitude towards Croats, as expressed in ''Orthodox Dalmatia'' a few years prior.

Under constant pressure from civil authorities and other affairs, Milaš forcibly retired from the position of Bishop of Dalmatia in early 1912. Such retirement was an uncommon occurrence, and it is thought that it was caused by a scandal surrounding the prolonged embezzlement of great amount of money of various funds (academic, school, construction and maintenance) and other goods of the Orthodox municipality. The scandal resulted in the suicide of Dositej Jović on 12 October 1910, then bishop of Kotor and consistory treasurer in Zadar, who wrote in his last letter that "there is my fault too, but it is more prevalent on the other, higher side" (with the "higher side" referring to Milaš). In the Serbian public and media the scandal was perceived with significant disappointment and disgrace. In late 1911, the administrative board of the Orthodox priest association of the Dalmatian eparchy published a circulaire, which Milaš received in January 1912. The text blamed him and held him morally responsible for the losses, and according to the people's statements, the priesthood from Zadar had talked of embezzlement as early as 1901.

In 1914, when Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia, the police searched his apartment and took possession of some of his private correspondences and latest work. Milaš died in Dubrovnik on 20 March 1915. On 4 October 1930 his remains were transferred to Šibenik and buried the next day "in a special chapel at the St. Salvation church" (of the Catholic monastery of St. Salvation until early 19th century and since then the Orthodox Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos, Šibenik).

Legacy

Milaš grew up in a region where jurisprudence was founded on Roman and Byzantine law. Most of his work was translated into Russian, German, Romanian, Bulgarian and Greek, and has greatly influenced modern Orthodox canonists. Milaš produced a number of collections of canonical texts and was particularly interested in the churches of North Africa in the Roman period. He was largely active on the matter of Church-State relations, a subject which preoccupied most of his work. He translated ''The Constitution (Syntagma) of the Divine and Sacred Canons'' by Rallis and Potlis, and placed his commentaries in the context of previous Biblical hermeneutic works. His bibliography includes more than 180 published works, either books or texts in various magazines. His collected works were published in 7 volumes.

He was one of the most respected experts and authorities on Eastern Orthodox canonical and ecclesiastical law, and although his career as a church historian was less notable and plagued with ideological motivation, he nonetheless remains among the more notable Serbian church historians.

Milaš was an honorary member of the Moscow Theological Academy, Saint Petersburg Theological Academy, corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), member of the Society for recent history of Austria in Vienna, Matica Dalmatinska, Matica srpska, the Serb Archaeological Society and the Society of Saint Sava in Belgrade.

He is included in the 100 most prominent Serbs, compiled by a committee of academicians at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

In 2012, he was locally glorified as a saint by the Diocese of Dalmatia of the Serbian Orthodox Church. He was canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church with the feast day being 21 September/12 October.

''Orthodox Dalmatia''

Milaš, motivated by political and ecclesial circumstances in Dalmatia which were not in accordance with his vision, began writing ''Pravoslavna Dalmacija'' ("Orthodox Dalmatia") which was published in 1901. The work was reportedly based on Simeon Končarević's chronicle, an unconfirmed source. It received mixed reviews already at the time of its publication, and by modern scientific standards is regarded as an unreliable pseudoscientific work. According to Croatian historian Stjepan Antoljak, it is "tendentiously" written, and "the goal of this book was clear and full of unverified claims and fabrications, which even today are not fully noticed and not pointed out, and not completely refuted", while the Serbian historian Tibor Živković, concluded that "his work for the time period is very poor in valid scientific apparatus and burdened with the writer's stated goal contained in the very title of his work" and that the "assessment of Milaš's book ''Orthodox Dalmatia'' was given in 1903 by Jovan Radonić, so its place in historiography has long been established and there is no need to recall all the shortcomings of that work".

Related to the Serbian romantic nationalist ideology of the 19th and early 20th century, Milaš in the work claimed, fabricated and invented many factual inaccuracies about the history of Dalmatia, pre-Ottoman presence of Serbs, and foundation of Serb Orthodox monasteries and churches in Dalmatia, which influenced Serbian national historiography (including historians like Jovan Radonić, Viktor Novak and Marko Jačov), and Serbian nationalist sentiment. Among his controversial claims are that Orthodoxy can be traced in Dalmatia since Apostolic Age, that the Serbs settled in Dalmatia in the 4th century and arrived there before the Croats, that the region was ethnically Serbian until the 9th-11th century when Croatian rulers "imposed Catholicism and Croatism on the Serbs", as Cyril and Methodius were Orthodox (before the East–West Schism) and baptized the Croats to Eastern Orthodoxy, who formally became Catholics after the coronation of "treacherous" Croatian king Demetrius Zvonimir (1075), that the Serbs re-settled Dalmatia in the 14-15th century as the Vlachs of Croatia represented a new wave of Serbs, and that Dalmatia was exclusively settled by Serbs during the Ottoman period, among others. Milaš also claimed that the Serbian Orthodox monasteries of Dragović, Krka and Krupa and other churches in Dalmatia (incl. Church of Holy Salvation, Cetina) were founded since the 14–15th century. He also shared Vuk Karadžić's viewpoint that all speakers of Shtokavian dialect were ethnic Serbs.

With the work inspired and guided by an idea of forever existing intolerance of Serb Orthodoxy in Dalmatia, Milaš was highly critical and made heavy accusations against the pope and Roman church. He claimed that the Croats initially were Orthodox Christians, and sacral heritage of Split was part of Serbian Orthodox heritage as well. He promoted a black-and-white thinking that everything related to Orthodoxy and Serbs is positive in comparison to Catholicism and Croats which is negative. As summarized by Vjekoslav Perica, "Milaš views the religious history of Dalmatia and Croatia as a history of hatred and intolerance of ethnic Serbs under Venetian and Austria rule", and Milaš "laid the foundations of Serbian ecclesiastical historiography (which coincides with the nationalist perspective in the secular Serbian historiography) on the assumption that Serbs and Croats were ethnically the same people, predetermined to form a unified Slavic (Orthodox) nation, had the popes not intervened and prevented these two fraternal Slavic peoples from becoming all Greek Orthodox".

The book was reprinted in 1989 in Belgrade, receiving praise from a Serbian editor, during a time when nationalism, including Serbian nationalism, was rising in the period leading up to the breakup of Yugoslavia. Croatian church historians Stanko Bačić and Mile Bogović have contended that the re-printing of such ideas was used as argument and justification for Serbian politics during the Yugoslav Wars. Sabrina P. Ramet shares this view. Emil Hilton Saggau notes how his work echoed the "many classic Serbian historical arguments used during the war in Croatia and Bosnia".

Selected works

* "Historical-Canonical view on establishment of Serbo-Romanian Metropolis of Bukovina and Dalmatia" (1873)
* ''Clerical dignities in the Orthodox Church'' (1879)
* ''Slavic Apostles Ss. Cyril and Methodius'' (1881)
* ''Codex canonum ecclesiae africane'' (1881)
* ''St. Sava's Kormchya Book'' (1884)
* ''Das Synodal-Statut der orth. Oriental Metropolie der Bukowina i Dalmatien mit Erläuterungen'' (1885)
* ''Roman Catholic Propaganda, its foundation and rules today'' (1889; translated in Russian 1889, and in Bulgarian 1890)
* ''Question of Eastern Church and task of Austria in it'' (1889; 1890 translated in Romanian and German)
* ''Orthodox Church and Canon Law'' in six volumes (first edition 1890; second revised edition 1890, translated in Russian 1897, in German 1897, in Bulgarian 1903)
* ''Rules (Κανόνες) of Orthodox Church with commentary'' (I 1895, II 1896)
* (I, 1899)
* ''Orthodox Dalmatia'' (1901)
* ''Principles of jurisdiction in Orthodox Church''
* ''Orthodox Monasticism'' (Mostar 1902)

See also

* History of the Serbian Orthodox Church

Notes

References

Further reading

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External links

Nikodim Milaš
- Eparchy of Dalmatia

Епископ Никдоим Милаш
- St. Sava Theological Seminary in Belgrade

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milas, Nikodim
1845 births
1915 deaths
Bishops of Šibenik
Bishops in the Kingdom of Dalmatia
Serbs of Croatia
Eparchy of Dalmatia
Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia
19th-century Eastern Orthodox bishops
Serbian theologians
20th-century Serbian historians
19th-century Serbian historians
Eastern Orthodox writers
Academic staff of Belgrade Higher School
Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church
Serbian Austro-Hungarians