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Presveta Bogorodica Lepavinska
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Conversation with archimandrite Dositej (Miljkov) from Fruska Gora’s monastery Grgeteg



St. Bishop Nikolaj Qi’ki in his book “Faith of the Saints” is asking: “What does it mean to love God?”, and answering: “That means: loving Him more than anything, more than yourself, or family, or world, or anything else in this world”. As long as in our monasteries we would have monks, who love God in this manner, the bells of our Orthodox Churches will be ringing and the Holy Liturgy will be served. This is one bright example ...

The day after the monastery’s Patron Saint, - the Feast of the Entrance of the All-holy Theotokos - in 2003, archimandrite Father Dositej (Miljkov) visited our monastery, and on this occasion this conversation was held. Father Dositej is, we can say it rightly, one of the radiance of contemporary Serbian monasticism. Hardly anyone knows that Father Dositej brought the body of abbess Anastasia (Pušić) from Dalj to Serbia, or more precisely to monastery Grgeteg, during the war in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. The body had been buried for five years in Dalj’s cemetery and it was completely incorruptible. I asked Father Dositej to tell us exactly how this happened, considering that, due to his monastic modesty, he had not told anyone about this event. No one could have known how much love it took for undertaking such a brave effort in those difficult times.

Mother Anastasia and Mother Theodora, as we found from Father Dositej, were living for decades in St. Ana’s monastery. After that, certain, but not accidental circumstances brought them to Dalj, where the Lord reveals Himself to us, the sinners, through their testifying.

- Father Dositej, hardly anyone knows that you’d transferred the remnants of deceased abbess Anastasia from Dalj to Grgeteg monastery and that even after five years after it was buried , it did not decay.. Could you please tell us how all this happened?

Father Dositej: - When the war had started, I decided, with the blessing of the bishop of Srem Vasily, to bring Mother Anastasia and Mother Theodora to our monastery. They were living on their own in Dalj; they were quite old and ill. I visited them during the enthronement of bishop of Osijek and Poland Lukijan, and at that time I promised them that I would come to take them as soon as possible. The war had already started. After several days, when I came to take them, a surprise was waiting for me. Mother Anastasia was already dead, and she was buried in the nearby cemetery. Mother Theodore was completely alone, and we took her immediately to Grgeteg monastery. This happened in 1991. Mother Anastasia was buried in Dalj’s cemetery. 

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Mother Theodore was a very unique nun. As we listened to her or looked at her, we’d had an impression as if we were reading the hagiography of St. Sarah - or some old anchorites:- truly a holy simplicity ...As a young lady, she was not educated, but she was enlightened by the Holy Spirit. At the time she came to Grgeteg, the nuns’ sisterhood was in the process of forming. She was the example, - not only in words, - of those who gave so much to this present sisterhood. Her spiritual experience was very wide. She did not read much and she was not educated, but she had everything in her mind. The only wish she expressed and her only sorrow was that Mother Anastasia was still in Dalj’s cemetery. But, it is clear now that their life Cross to bear was that they met in Dalj and pass through all these things ... When I used to ask her: “Mother Theodore, what can we do for you?”, she would answer: “I only feel sorry because Mother stayed in Dalj”. I forgot to tell you one detail, which overwhelmed me at that time. Once, when I was a young monk, I went to visit them. I remember how difficult that was to see them so helpless and old. Then I said to Mother Anastasia that they should had come and staye with us. Out of the blue sky, Mother said: “Father, is there at least a stable’s entrance, so we could die in the monastery and not in the world? We’ve been in the monastery since our childhood”. And lo indeed, she died in Dalj . 

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Mother Theodore had one and the only wish. Once, when bishop Vasily asked her: “How are you, Mother, are you all right?”, she was so content with everything, but always sorry because Mother Anastasia stayed in Dalj. Then I said to her: “If it’s God’s will that we would still be alive and when the circumstances get better, we will take Mother Anastasia from Dalj”. But Mother Theodore died in 1993, and that task was left to me as a pledge. After two-three years, I am not sure if it was in 1995 or 1996, when I found out that the peaceful reintegration will happen, I decided to take the body of the abbess Anastasia from Dalj. Initially, I went there just to check if that was possible at all. When I arrived to Dalj, there was total confusion: different armies, different people ... I realized that it was a big problem. Father Du]ko Simin, an archpriest who at the time was was the secretary of the Srem diocese and myself decided to start the task immediately.

This is what we did: we found the grave-digger, dug up the grave, and saw- the m i r a c l e:  Mother Anastasia’s body had not decayed. After the big surprise, I asked myself: “What am I going to do? The grave is dug up, and I have no coffin ...” It’s easy to get a coffin, but it is difficult, mostly impossible, to get the permit for crossing the bridge in Bogojevo. There are four different sentinels on the bridge. We had to carry on, and there was no return. The grave-digger and I went down to the grave and took the body of Mother Anastasia. Father Gabriel, please trust me, I am telling you this like to my spiritual father ... when Mother Anastasia was buried, Mother Theodore put “The Dream of the Holy Theotokos” on her chest (obviously, a paper one). It is clear, that if that small booklet were laying in the wet room, it would been completely destroyed. Yet it was laying exactly five years in the grave, on Mother Anastasia’s chest, completely untouched. Pana (monastic head-dress) as well, looked as if it was just put on; - we just shook off the dust. It was very difficult. How can I return the body back to the grave; how can I carry it; where can I go with the coffin; what am I going to do, O Holy Theotokos? Archpriest Du]ko got scared, as well. He only said: “Do what you can do please”. 

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In the confusion I turned around and saw the grave-digger’s house and one blanket on the door. I asked the gravedigger: “Please give me this blanket, and I will pay you or I will send you one or bring you two new ones”. - “No, father, you pay first and then you can take it”. We paid, of course, and then I wrapped the body and then we wanted to put it in the car. As we had Jugo car, we realized that we could not put the body in it. Oh, Lord, what shall we do?
It is awful and the war was still going on. Helpless and desperate, I started to cry and I uttered a scream: “Mother Anastasia, please help us!” Even now I can’t say how we managed to wrap up the body of Mother Anastasia, to cover it with my outer cassock and carefully, in half-laying position, put it in the back seat. I had just recovered my breath, when I realized that time was flying ... How will I cross the bridge?  When we had reached the bridge, I thought: “If only God would help us here...” The border was in Bogojevo, just before the peaceful reintegration. The first sentries from Nigeria based there, asked: “Who is this?” I said: “This is Sister and she is not feeling well”. We had passed them, and Russians, and the third ones, and fourth ones, and had arrived in Bogojevo. Only then was I was relived. In Bogojevo, on the other side, Father Jova Kljajic was waiting for us.  He used to be the priest in Dalj and he knew Mother Anastasia and Mother Theodore. When he saw us, he was making the sign of the cross over himself. “It’s really God’s miracle that you managed to pass through”. For us it appeared it was not amiracle that Mother Anastasia’a body was incorrupt as much as the fact the we had managed to cross the border without being stopped at all.

When we arrived at the monastery, we placed the body of Mother Anastasia in the Church in order to bury it the next day. I thought: “When the body comes in contact with air, it certainly will react, and, consequently… Father Gabriel, please believe me, as she was buried the first time, she was taken out from the grave in the same condition and buried again. This is why the body laying my cassock I wrapped over with the white shroud, which people
bring from Jerusalem, and we put it in the grave ... Yes, this is a great God’s miracle.

- Father, How had Mother Anastasia and Mother Theodore come to Dalj?

- Father Dositej: - That is a long story. They were in St. Anamonastery for ages, making superhuman efforts to maintain it and save it. Two old women in such conditions ... And you, Father Gabriel, are also carrying your own Cross. Those two old women, abandoned - so to speak - by everyone, were struggling for decades, and at the end, when they were supposed to get some consolation, when they were supposed to have some help in carrying
their Cross until the end, something else had happened. Thus, they were in Dalj for several years. I have to say that I am really glad that we had managed to transfer Mother Anastasia’s body, because I think that Mother Theodore’s soul
only then started resting in peace. She loved her spiritual mother so much, in the manner of holy fathers. Now, they are now next to each other, waiting to be risen and waiting for ... the justice of God.

- Father Dositej, when you were transferring Mother Anastasia’s body, you met Sister Djudrja from Zagreb. You took her with you, but Mother Anastasia’s body in the car as well...

Father Dositej: - Yes, it is good that you reminded me. Sister Djurdja had visited us and she had started walking from Irig, and we took her with us when we met her on the road. Obviously, she did not know that we were taking Mother Anastasia’s body. She would realized that later ... because Mother Anastasia had been in half-sitting position, and someone who would have seen her, would never have thought she is not alive. Tired and tense, we visited a certain sister Radojka to refresh with water, and then to continue our trip.  Sister Radojka invited us: “Please, come
in for coffee. Take that sister as well, and let her come in, too”, she was referring to Mother Anastasia. Now you can completely understand the state of Mother Anastasia.

- Father: When exactly was that?

- Father Dositej: - I do not know exactly, it may have been in March 1996, shortly before the peaceful reintegration. I only know that the border was completely closed two months afterwards.

- Father: Did they want to see any documents on the border?

- Father Dositej: - No, they did not. When we were crossing on the Croatian side, they had only asked for an identification card, and when we were going back with the body of Mother Anastasia, perhaps by God’s intervention - they did not ask for anything. I cannot even imagine what would have happened if they had asked for something!

There are many interesting episodes in lives of Mother Anastasia and Mother Theodore. Mother Anastasia, with the secular name Olga Pušic, was born in Dalj, in 1922, and tonsured in Kovilj sometime between two World’s Wars, under the (monastic) name Agripina. Later, together with the clergy, she went to the monastery Ravanica near Cuprija, ant then to the monastery of Fruška Gora, and at the end to Daljska Vodica, where she was tonsured in small schema under the name Anastasia, the name of St. Sava’s mother. You most likely know about the life of sisters in Ravanica. She was one of the first sisters who came to the monastery Kovilj, where Mother Efimija was. She’d endured the difficulties of being a refugee during the Second World War. From the monastery Ravanica, Mother Anastasia, having received the blessing, entered to the monastery of St. Ana. The situation there was very similar to the present one.  Some monks were coming and going, on their own initiative and without blessing, so there was a great fear that someone would take over the monastery. Mother Anastasia was appointed to form the sisterhood in St. Ana’s monastery. The path first took her to Daljska Vodica, where she met Mother Theodore, who was tonsured before her.  Mother Anastasia died on August 10, 1991 of a stroke in Daljske Vodice, and was buried on the next day on Dalj’s cemetery. The priest Bogdan Tatomir officiated at her funeral. 

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Mother Theodore, whose secular name was Danica Aleksic, was born in Borovo Village in 1919. Bishop of Srem tonsured her in the monastery Daljska Vodica under the monastic name Theodore. She was tonsured in the small schema in the monastery of St. Ana. After the Second World War, both of them went to Daljska Vodica, and then with the blessing to the monastery of St. Ana, where for several decades they were keeping this holy place. There they had different spiritual experiences. Mati Anastasia was a living legend. She was a great organizer.  She was not educated, but that did not prevent her from studying all Holy Fathers. She had liked to talk about Father Tihon, a Russian, who was a spiritual father in the monastery Ravanica. She kept saying that he was a holy man. And what can we say about Mother Theodore? If someone had written (and recorded) her life experiences, he could have written a new, modern Patericon, not just by retelling experiences of the Holy Fathers, but also of her personal experiences. There is a spring of holy water near the monastery Daljska Vodica. It is well known that exactly there Saint bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic was promoting bogomoljacki[1] movement, which he considered as very important. Mika Orsic, a missionary who was making efforts that Daljska Vodica be granted the status of a monastery, was living there. Mother Theodore was serene, and unconditionally obedient. To reach the spring, it was necessary to descend 24 steps.
Mother Theodore did not have one leg, yet she used to go several times during the day. It is interesting to say that Mother Theodore, as a nun in Ravanica also was responsible to bring the water for the monastery. That is, of course, was a difficult task. When she came to the monastery for the first time, Mother Jefimija told her: “Sister Theodore, don’t count the stairs when you go to bring the water”. Eighteen years later, when Mother Theodore was already ill, Mother Jefimija asked her: “Is it difficult for you to bring the water from downstairs?” She said: “No, Mother”. “And how many stairs are there?” - Mother Jefimija asked her again. - “I don’t know, Mother”. “How come you do not know that when you have been going there for so many years to bring the water?” - “You, Mati, told me not to count the stairs, in order that the angel may count my steps .”

You see, this is so unbelievable.  That is the true obedience. Many people, who do not have love for God, cannot understand this. Mother Theodore died on the 29th October 1993, and she was buried on the 30th of October in the monastery’s cemetery of monastery Grgeteg, close to her spiritual mother, Mother Anastasia. There were more than 20 priests on the funeral service. I am so glad that we fulfilled her life-wish. I can remember tears in her eyes when
she used to recall that her Mother stayed in Dalj. It was God’s will for them to be together until the resurrection.  Glory to God for all things.

- Father, you mentioned that, since the body of Mati Anastasia has been in the monastery Grgeteg, it’s been possible to feel a great grace, how can you explain this? 

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- Father Dositej: - Everyone who regularly comes to our monastery for a church service knows that the situation after the Second World War was very difficult, in many other Churches, as well as in ours. It is true that the monastery rapidly recovered after Mati Theodore arrived, not just materially.  The Sisterhood gathered and formed, and the monastery was brought in order. I rejoiced greatly when His Holiness Patriarch Pavle, while visiting our monastery on one occasion, had gone personally to see Mati Theodore. As she didn’t have one leg, I asked His Holiness if he
wanted Mati Theodore to come to service, and sit there ... “No, I shall go to see her!” - he said, and personally went to see her.Mati Theodore had greatly contributed to the present condition of our monastery. That great influence as well as organizational capabilities of Mati Anastasia are noticeable everywhere.  I firmly believe that, thanks to Mati Theodore’s prayers, God’s grace is evident in her coming to our monastery, and in God allowing us to bring the body of Mati Anastasia, He has descended upon her as well. I also believe, that incorrupt body of Mati Anastasia, which is the first sign of holiness, and which is now interred in our monastic cemetery, mostly thanks to the prayers of
Mati Theodore, is now spreading and multiplying the grace at our holy place.

- Father, thank you very much for this wonderful conversation!

- Thanks to God! - Father Dositej - he concluded our conversation without saying a single word about himself.

However, we should recall the words of St. Serafim of Sarov: “To the heart of a Christian should be dear everything what the Holy Church has accepted and embraced. Woe to him who adds or takes one word from that!”



translated from Serbian by dr Radmila Maksimović

[1]. A movement of religious and pious persons. The word derives from the words Bog- God; and moliti dse = to pray 

ARCHIMANDRITE GAVRILO

Dear visitors of our web-site of the monastery Lepavina! Due to a high number of visits of our website, I am honoured to take the responsibility to describe you in English different events from Serbian Orthodox Church and monastery Lepavina. We would like to inform you that we will be also putting on our web-site some texts in English on different subjects from other Orthodox websites. I deeply hope and believe that our Lord will help me in that!

With God’s blessing, from monastery Lepavina Archimandrite Gavrilo.

Biography Archimandrite Gabriel (Vuckovic)

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Njegovo Visokopreosvestenstvo Mitropolit G. Porfirije

Njegovo Visokopreosveštenstvo Mitropolit G. Porfirije

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