Early Life and Education
He was born Nikola Velimirović on January 4, 1881 (December 23, 1880, Old Style), in the village of Lelić near Valjevo in the Principality of Serbia, the first of nine children of the farmers Dragomir and Katarina Velimirović. His mother's piety marked him deeply; his first schooling came at the nearby Ćelije monastery school and in Valjevo.
He graduated from the Seminary of Saint Sava in Belgrade in 1905 and was sent abroad for advanced study. In 1908 he took a doctorate in theology at Berne with a dissertation on faith in the Resurrection of Christ as the foundation of the dogmas of the apostolic Church, and he followed it with a second, philosophical dissertation on Berkeley. He also spent time studying in Russia, and by the accounts of his life he came to preach and write fluently in several languages.
In 1909, after recovering from a grave attack of dysentery — during which he vowed to give his life wholly to God's service if he were healed — he was tonsured a monk at Rakovica Monastery near Belgrade and received the name Nikolaj. He was ordained to the priesthood that same year, was soon raised to the rank of archimandrite, and taught at the Belgrade seminary, where his brief, concentrated sermons began to draw wide attention.
Wartime Missions and the Episcopate
When the First World War engulfed Serbia, the Serbian government sent the young archimandrite in April 1915 on a mission to Great Britain and America to plead the cause of his suffering people. His preaching made an extraordinary impression in the English-speaking world; he spoke in famous Anglican pulpits, and he is recorded as the first Eastern Orthodox clergyman to preach in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. He returned to Serbia in 1919.
That year he was consecrated Bishop of Žiča, the ancient crowning see of the Serbian kings, and in 1920 he was transferred to the see of Ohrid, which he served (from 1931 as Bishop of Ohrid and Bitola) until returning to Žiča in 1936. As bishop he restored churches and monasteries, established orphanages and aided the victims of war, and gave pastoral direction to the bogomoljci ('God-prayers'), a popular lay movement of prayer and repentance that he guided into the heart of the Church's life.
In 1921 he traveled again to America on an extended church mission, lecturing across the country, and for a time in the early 1920s he carried responsibility for the fledgling Serbian church organization in America — the diocese whose first resident bishop, St. Mardarije of Libertyville, was consecrated in 1926.
The Second World War and Dachau
After the German invasion and occupation of Yugoslavia in 1941, Bishop Nikolaj was arrested at Žiča Monastery. He was held under confinement first at Ljubostinja Monastery and then at Vojlovica, where Patriarch Gavrilo (Dožić) of Serbia was confined with him.
In 1944 the two were transferred to the Dachau concentration camp — most accounts date the transfer to September 1944 — where they were registered as 'special prisoners' held in a section apart from the general camp. Accounts of the imprisonment differ in emphasis: the synaxarion tradition speaks of suffering and torture and of atrocities witnessed, while historians note the two hierarchs' segregated special-prisoner status. They were released late in 1944, and Bishop Nikolaj was finally liberated by American troops in the Austrian Tyrol in May 1945.
Out of the war years came one of his most personal books, later published in English as Words to the Serbian People Through the Dungeon Window, written from his Dachau captivity.
American Exile and Repose
Unwilling to return to Yugoslavia under the new communist regime, he emigrated to the United States as a refugee in 1946. He taught for about three years at St. Sava's Serbian Seminary in Libertyville, Illinois, and lectured as a guest at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary and at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville.
In 1951 he settled at St. Tikhon's Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania, where he served as dean and rector of St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary, forming a generation of clergy for the American Church while continuing to write.
He served his last Liturgy on Saturday, March 17, 1956, and was found reposed at prayer the next morning, March 18, 1956, in his cell at St. Tikhon's. He was buried at St. Sava Monastery in Libertyville, near the grave of St. Mardarije, where his tomb was venerated by Serbian Americans for thirty-five years.
Writings and Legacy
Nikolai was an exceptionally prolific author whose work spanned theology, homiletics, apologetics, and devotional literature. His best-known book is the Prologue of Ohrid (1926), a year-long cycle of saints' lives, hymns, reflections, and counsel for every day of the year that became one of the most beloved spiritual books of the Orthodox world.
In Prayers by the Lake (1922), written beside Lake Ohrid, he poured out a hundred contemplative prayers in poetic prose — a modern echo of the Psalms that is widely regarded as his literary masterpiece. Other significant works include his collected Homilies (1925), The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916), Thoughts on Good and Evil (1923), and The Life of St. Sava (1951), written in America.
His complete works were later published in twenty-three volumes by the Glas Crkve publishing house in Valjevo, Serbia. For the power of his preaching and writing he came to be widely regarded as the 'New Chrysostom'; St. John Maximovitch described him as a great saint and a Chrysostom of his day.
Relics & Shrines
After thirty-five years at St. Sava Monastery in Libertyville, his relics were solemnly translated to Serbia and re-interred on May 12, 1991, in his native village of Lelić, near Valjevo, where his shrine remains a place of pilgrimage. His disciple St. Justin (Popović) rests nearby at Ćelije Monastery in the same Valjevo countryside.
In May 2023 his relics were carried in procession through Belgrade before enormous crowds, an event reported as among the largest religious processions in the city's history. A Serbian Orthodox monastery in China Township, Michigan, is dedicated to him — a witness of his continuing veneration in the America of his exile.
Glorification
The Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church glorified Bishop Nikolaj (Velimirović) of Ohrid and Žiča as a saint at its session of May 2003 — the decision is dated May 19, 2003, with the solemn proclamation following days later — and entered his name in the calendar of saints.
He is commemorated on March 18, the day of his repose, and the translation of his relics to Lelić is kept in some calendars on May 3.
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented: He was glorified by the Serbian Orthodox Church in May 2003, and his relics rest at Lelić, where pilgrims have come in great numbers since their return in 1991. The 2023 procession of his relics through Belgrade drew crowds reported in the hundreds of thousands.
Traditional Accounts: The accounts of his life describe a magnetic pastoral presence, a special love for children, and the 'gift of tears' in compunctionate prayer. His monastic life itself began, by his own account, with a vow made in grave illness and the healing that followed. He was found on the morning of his repose kneeling in prayer, and the tradition of the Church has received this as the seal of a life consumed in prayer.
