Director of the Missionary Department of the Archdiocese of Belgrade-Karlovci
Presbyter Oliver Subotic was born on 24 February 1977 in Nova Varos (Serbia). He finished primary school and secondary school studies (mathematics and sciences major) in his hometown. He graduated from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, IT department in Belgrade (2004) and from the Orthodox Theological Faculty (2005), at which he studied concurrently. He received his master’s degree from the Orthodox Theological Faculty (2008) and his doctorate from the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Belgrade (2011).
During his undergraduate studies, he worked for two years at the Higher School of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade, as an expert associate lecturer in the subjects of Computer Graphics and Computer Animation. After graduating from the Faculty of Organizational Sciences, he worked at the Orthodox Theological Faculty as a technical associate in information work within the Information and Documentation Center. He taught religious education for two years at the Ninth Belgrade Gymnasium (2007-2009) and at the Computer Gymnasium (2009) in Belgrade.
He was ordained to the rank of a deacon on 22 January 2008 in the Serbian Patriarchate in Belgrade by Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro and the Littoral and appointed to serve the Church of the Ascension of the Lord in Zarkovo (Belgrade). He was ordained a priest on the Feast of the Epiphany in 2011 by the Serbian Patriarch Irinej and was appointed parish priest of the newly founded fifth parish of Zarkovo, where he served for nine years. From 2020 he was appointed to serve the second parish at the Church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Belgrade.
At the end of 2007, the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church appointed him as the editor-in-chief of the Православни мисионар (Orthodox Missionary) magazine, the official missionary publication for young people, which he edited continuously for the next 16 years. For a short period, he was also the acting president of the Saint Sava Youth Community of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovac (2008). As a permanent member of the Catechetical Board of the Archbishopric, he was in charge of improving the quality of religious education in Belgrade secondary schools (2008-2014). With the establishment of the Centre for the Study and Use of Modern Technologies at the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovac, he was appointed its first director (2008) and remained in this position after the Centre was transferred to direct synodal administration (2011-2015). After the founding of the Missionary Department of the Serbian Orthodox Church (2014), he was appointed a deputy to the mandatory member of the Holy Synod of Bishops, who is in charge of monitoring the work of this synodal missionary body. Immediately after the launch of the Synodal Programme for the Spiritual Guidance of Martial Arts Trainers (2016), he was appointed, along with the well-known karate master Protopresbyter-Stavrophore Vojislav Bilbija, as the coordinator of the project. In an interim period, until the election of the new Serbian Patriarch, he served as the editor-in-chief of the Information Service of the Serbian Orthodox Church (2020-2021).
In 2021, he founded the “Petar Mandic Endowment”, a charitable institution that preserves the memory of Nikola Tesla’s priestly ancestors, provides scholarships to gifted students without one or both parents, promotes parenting schools based on Christian values systems, fosters dialogue between Christianity and science, publishes works that introduce the world public to the personalities of Serbian history, and works to improve relations between Serbs and other peoples.
By the decision of His Holiness the Serbian Patriarch Porfirijе, in 2024 he was appointed as the director of the newly founded Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade-Karlovci.
He participated in dozens of expert meetings, conferences, forums and round tables held in Serbia and abroad on the topics of the perspective of Orthodox Christianity towards the phenomena of information technology, mass media and globalisation. On several occasions, he was the official representative of the Serbian Orthodox Church in initiatives of wider social significance regarding the use of modern information and communication technologies.
He has published sixteen books.
With the blessing of God, he and his wife Mirjana have three children: Nina, Sava and Nikola.
