Serbia has a new patriarch: Who is Porfirije Peric, the new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church?

Photo: Tanjug/Tanja Valic

Porfirije Peric has been elected as the 46th head of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Previously, he was the Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana, as the fourth Metropolitan of the Diocese of Zagreb and Ljubljana.

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He was born on July 22, 1961 in Becej. He is the first of three children of Radivoje and Radojka Peric, who, after the Second World War, moved to Vojvodina (northern Serbia) from the village of Osinje near Derventa in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At his baptism, he was named Prvoslav. He received his primary education in Curug, and graduated from high school in Novi Sad in 1980, according to the website of the Metropolitanate of Zagreb.

He attended archeology studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade. Porfirije soon began studying at the Faculty of Theology of the Serbian Orthodox Church, where he graduated in 1987.

He was ordained a monk on St. Thomas Sunday, April 11, 1986, by his spiritual father, then hieromonk Dr. Irinej (Bulovic), the current Bishop of Backa. The same year, the Bishop of Raska and Prizren, Pavle (Stojicevic), who later became the Serbian patriarch, ordained him as hierodeacon at the monastery of Holy Trinity in Musutiste, in Kosovo an Metohija.

Bishop of Backa Irinej Bulovic / Photo: Tanjug/Dragan Kujundzic

He attended postgraduate studies in Athens from 1986 until 1990, where he earned his PhD in 2004.

He joined the monastery of Holy Archangels in Kovilj where he was ordained as hieromonk and became its abbot. During the meeting of the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the SPC in Belgrade on May 14, 1999, he was elected as Bishop of Jegar, vicar of the Bishop of Backa. He was ordained by Patriarch Pavle in the Novi Sad Cathedral on June 13, 1999. He was elected Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana at the session of the Holy Synod of Bishops on May 26, 2014. On June 13 of the same year, Patriarch Irinej introduced him to the metropolitan throne in the Church of the Transfiguration in Zagreb, Croatia, where Metropolitan Porfirije succeeded the blessed Metropolitan Jovan (Pavlovic).

Faculty of Theology/ Photo: Wikipedia/Miljan Simonovic

He is an associate professor at the Orthodox Faculty  of Theology of the University of Belgrade. He speaks Greek, English, and Russian.

At the initiative of Bishop Porfirije, four therapeutic communities have been formed in the Kovilj monastery for the treatment of addiction, called "The Land of the Living." Since the founding of the first community in 2005, until the beginning of 2021, almost 4,000 people passed through these unique treatment facilities in which the knowledge and skill of the medical science is intertwined with centuries-old Orthodox spiritual experience.

Monastery of Kovilj / Photo: Wikimedia/bogoljub

As a representative of traditional Churches and religious communities in Serbia, Bishop Porfirije was first a member (2005-2008), and then served as president of the Council of the Republic Broadcasting Agency, RRA (2008-2014).

He was the first hierarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church to be entrusted with the organization of religious life in the Serbian Army (2010-2011).

Since 2002, Bishop Porfirije has been president of the Board of Directors of the Serbian Business Association "Privrednik" in Novi Sad, where he has been particularly engaged in raising funds for scholarships for gifted Serbian pupils and students.

Professorship

He defended his doctoral thesis, "Possibility of Knowability of God in St. Paul's Understanding According to the Interpretation of Saint John Chrysostom" at the Faculty of Theology of the University of Athens in 2004. The same year, he became a lecturer at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade - Department of Pastoral Psychology - succeeding psychiatrist and academician Dr. Vladeta Jerotic, with whom he worked closely in many fields for many years.

Vladeta Jerotic / Printscreen: Youtube/Телевизија Храм

As an associate professor at the Faculty of Theology, since 2015, he has been teaching basic studies in Pastoral Theology with Psychology and New Testament Theology, as well as other subjects at the master's and doctoral level. He participated in the initiation and promotion of the Bible Institute at the Faculty of Theology.

He is the author of the books "Face to Face - Biblical-Pastoral Reflections on God, Man and the World" (Belgrade - Zagreb, 2015) and "Wisdom in the Secret Hidden - Essays from the Theology of Apostle Paul" (Belgrade, 2020), as well as of about 30 scientific, professional and popular papers published in domestic and international journals. A collection of interviews and speeches, which he gave during the first two years of service as metropolitan (2014-2016), was published in 2016 under the title, "Zagreb and I Love Each Other Publicly."

(Telegraf.rs)