WHAT IS THE GREATEST SERBIAN SIN ACCORDING TO BISHOP NIKOLAJ: It is inherited from ancestors, all evil comes from it!

Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović was born in 1881 in the village of Lelić, not far from Valjevo. His parents Dragomir and Katarina had nine children, of whom only two sons survived, Nikolaj and Dušan, and Dušan died in 1914, and Nikolaj became a monk.

He became one of the most respected bishops; he did not spare words when praising our people, but he was not a stranger to giving us some criticism and pointing out the mistakes we make.

Bishop Nikolaj Velimirović once opened many people’s eyes by talking about the darkest Serbian sin.

-The most miserable Serbian sin – discord. Many forget that the four letters “S” are written around the cross. The concord is in the cross, not in the letters. If all Serbs knew that and bowed to the cross, they would quickly agree. But many see the four letters and not the cross. The cross creates concord, and concord saves the Serb – the bishop explained.

The greatest Serbian sin according to Bishop Nikolaj

In 2006, Bishop Nikolaj spoke to the Diaspora about “the greatest Serbian sin.”

“On one occasion, I was sitting with my long-time friend, an exceptionally educated and spiritually experienced man, a bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church. As always, our entire conversation had a quiet and solemn character. With few words, with long periods of silence, in a shared feeling of the difficulty of the time in which we live.

In front of walls filled with books and icons, under the dim evening light, this entire unusual conversation came down to our joint attempt to answer one question that was as complicated as it was mysterious. We would say the question of all questions: what is the greatest, that primordial Serbian, sin?

Yes, indeed, what is our greatest sin? From which all our other sins, flaws, and shortcomings later spread and multiply. What precedes every Serbian suffering, every fall, and every failure.

And so the conversation turned into a great and terrible reminder of everything that has happened to us.

Before the calm gaze of my silent interlocutor, I slowly listed the terrible scenes of our downfall in history. One by one.

As if in confession, I lined up terrible scenes of bloody execution sites and people’s hiding places. I remembered everything that freezes the heart and chills the soul.

I remember the godfather’s axe; I remember the officer’s saber cutting the breasts of a Serbian queen; I remember the bloody knife mercilessly stabbing and butchering the face of the most noble ruler of our modern history in the Topčider forest; I remember beggars and cripples with the highest military decorations after every Serbian war; I remember the future Serbian Duke Živojin Mišić pledging everything he has to creditors, even his greatcoat (since he was expelled from military service as an Obrenović supporter); I remember the greatest heroine of the Thessaloniki Front, the immortal Milunka Savić (recipient of the Karađorđe Star with Swords, the Obilić Medal, and two French Legion of Honor orders) working as a cleaning lady after the First World War and kneeling next to a bucket of dirty water just to feed her family – in the same kingdom in whose liberation she so gloriously participated, disguised as a man, wounded multiple times…

I remember Orthodox churches blown up by a Serbian hand; the shooting of Christ’s icon; extinguished family patron saints’ days; the forbidden Cyrillic alphabet; the silent Jasenovac…

I remember everything that we otherwise try to forget, everything that follows us like a demonic shadow, comfortably placed between the lines of our history…

It was necessary to endure all this suddenly revived horror.

A long silence. And a barely subdued, heavy sigh of repentance for all that the worst among our ancestors did to their own brothers, their godfathers, friends, leaders, rulers…

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us sinners! Have mercy on us, O Gentle One!

And after the prayer, we tried to somehow interpret this eerie chaos of insane, inhuman sins of our people.

And I tried. Listing in order: the sin of patricide; betrayal; self-will; selfishness; greed; disrespect for everything great and truly valuable…
My silent, wise interlocutor reminded me that these are “only reflections of something older than everything listed.” That there is a root cause of this entire sad chronicle of our shame and dishonor. And that “this terrible sin is skillfully disguised in a seemingly completely harmless form.” In something that doesn’t even seem like a sin to us. He revealed to me, in a single word, the essential reason for all the reasons for our repeated suffering. He stated the solution:

“The greatest Serbian sin, from which all evil, all the horror and terror of our history and daily life later derive, is impatience.”

An ordinary, small, everyday, supposedly harmless impatience. It is our greatest, our heaviest, that original sin. The root cause of everything we will later ruin, betray, destroy, desecrate, reject, forget…

As always, the most complicated questions require the simplest answers. Which, it turned out, are often the only correct ones.

Because impatience is not the opposite of “patience,” but of wisdom.

Impatience is an obvious lack of faith in God and in oneself. Impatience is discouragement and lack of faith.

Impatience is the cause of every disappointment. Impatience is a rebellion against “Thy will be done.”

Impatience is the beginning of every end. Impatience is that suicidal Serbian “rebellion without a cause.”

Impatience is a godless resistance to everything we do not understand.

WORDS FOR ETERNITY: The relics of Bishop Nikolaj were transferred from the Saint Sava Monastery in Libertyville near Chicago to the Lelić Monastery in Serbia

I had no choice but to agree with my wise, patient friend.

And to now, here, convey to you, my dear ones, the memory of this old conversation. With the hope that you will understand me. And believe the words of the Serbian bishop, inspired by the thousand-year-old wisdom of Orthodox civilization.

Therefore, please, do not be impatient. No matter how much it hurts you. No matter how unbearable it seems to you…”