On the day when we celebrate the remembrance of Saint Cyril, Equal- to- the- Apostles, the Enlightener to the Slavs, we hereby inform the public that His Holiness, the Serbian Patriarch Kyr Porfirije has decided to establish the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci, in order to develop further the missionary activity of our Church.
With this decision, the central diocese of our local church has been granted, for the for the first time in its history, a professional missionary body, which will operate under the direct supervision of the Patriarch. At the same time, it will be the first diocesan missionary organisational unit of its kind within the Serbian Orthodox Church. By the decision of His Holiness, the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci has been conceived as a missionary structure, consisting of five different and interconnected sections. A special space has been designated for the headquarters of the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci at the parish house of the Saint Alexander Nevsky Church in Dorcol, a temple with decades long missionary tradition, best exemplified by the fact that its Missionary School will next year celebrate its fortieth anniversary.
Presbyter Dr. Oliver Subotic, a parish priest of the same church, who has previously been tasked with missionary work by the Holy Synod of Bishops, has been appointed as the Director of the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci. He has, in addition to his primary appointment, been entrusted with heading the Section for External Mission, which will focus mainly on the missionary and spiritual engagement with the foreign nationals, who are temporarily or permanently residing in Belgrade, and are interested in Orthodox Christianity. Archpriest-stavrophorus Vajo Jovic, a retired priest with decades of missionary experience, has been appointed as the Coordinator of the Parish Mission Section. This section will offer a continuous mentoring and guidance programme for young priests, who will be systematically taught the most valuable parish practices and will be given spiritual support concerning the demands of their priestly service. Deacon Aleksandar Milojkov, formerly a valedictorian graduate at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade, now a doctor of patristic studies, who serves at the Church of the Ascension of the Lord and is a religious education teacher at the Zemun Gymnasium, has been appointed as the Coordinator of the Section for Dialogue in the Public Sphere. This section will organise panel discussions where the Orthodox clergy, religious educators and intellectuals, will exchange views on different topics with the representatives of science, philosophy, art and culture, which will help break down the prejudices against the Church, inherited from the socialist era, which are still present in our society. The Section for Apologetic Mission, whose role is to provide an adequate and systematic response to the contemporary challenges of sectarianism, guruism and New Age movements, has been entrusted to a legal expert – Master of Religious Studies Zoran Lukovic, a member of the European Federation for Research and Documentation of Sectarian and Manipulative Activity, and one of Serbia’s best experts in the field of sectology. The Section for Electronic Mission, aimed at missionary coverage of the electronic field, has been entrusted to the IT expert Nenad Badovinac, formerly the closest associate of the archimandrite-missionary of blessed memory, Gavrilo Lepavinski.
Nebojisa Misevic, an IT specialist with many years of experience in the information-communication and graphic-media fields, who was previously involved in the work of the Religious Charitable Guardianship of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci and Hram Television, has been appointed as the Secretary of the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci. Ljiljana Mutavdzic, a parishioner of the Church of Saint Alexander Nevsky, who acquired her English language competence during her 30-year long residence in London, has been named as the Translator of the Department.
Kyr Patriarch Porfirije has also chosen the Feast of the Equal-to-the-Apostles Saints Cyril and Methodius, the Enlighteners of the Slavs as the St. Patron’s Day of the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci.
The wider public will be kept informed about the future activities of the Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci through the official church media channels.
Missionary Department of the Archbishopric of Belgrade and Karlovci.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Photo archive of the Churchof Saint Alexander Nevsky
