TROPARION TO SAINT NIKOLAJ OF ZICA

8th Voice

Golden-mouthed preacher of Resurrected Christ,
You guide of cross-bearing Serbian nation in all times,
Singing lyre of the Holy Spirit,
Pride and love of the monks,
Joy and praise of the priests,
Master of repentance,
People's Bishop,
Leader of the prayerful Christ's army,
Serbian and all-orthodox Saint Nikolaj;
With all the saints of Heavenly Serbia,
Pray the only humankind Lover
To give peace and harmony to our faithful people.

Above East and West

When steel strikes flint a spark is born. The flame rises up, above steel and flint. Should the Balkans be identified either with steel or with flint, it would no longer be Balkans, but East or West. If it wished to be the flame, above steel and stone, it would be and remain Christ's Balkans, above the sorrow of East and above the toil of West and as such useful to East and West: to shine to both of them.

Above East and West.

Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic, "Above East and West"

Bishop of Ohrid and Zica

Nikolaj Velimirovic (1880-1956)

Remained famous as a writer of poems which had been most widely accepted among the Serbs: they were their popular culture until the last upheavals in our history. Today, after we survived not only political, economical and ideological upheavals, but also a radical change of culture, there is no deeper foundations than bishop Nikolaj on which we should build the new Serbian culture on the edges of millenniums.

Songs Above East and West is a collection of his poems sung and played by the people who share the experience of the total destruction of culture - Eastern and Western - as we used to know it in the past. The only experience that our generation has is the experience of ruination and breakdown: therefore, it has the deepest vocation for rebuilding and creating