Originally baptised in the Roman Catholic faith, after the death of his parents, he was converted to Holy Orthodoxy under Bishop Gorazd, Bishop of the Orthodox Diocese in Czechoslovakia. The conversion took place in the Vrdnik Monastery of Ravanica at the hands of Fr. Makarije Djordjevic.

After elementary school, Emilian became a student of the Serbian Orthodox Seminary in Sarajevo from 1923 to 1928. Having graduated from the Seminary, he undertook post-graduate theological studies at the University of Belgrade, from 1929 to 1934.

In 1930, Emilian married a Serbian girl, Bosiljka Parlaceva, in the Cathedral Church of Sremski Karlovci.

On March 16, 1930, he was ordained to the Holy Diaconate at the St. Nicholas Cathedral by Dr. Irinej (Djordjevic), the Vicar-bishop of Belgrade-Karlovci. On March 23,1930, he was ordained to the Holy Priesthood.

by Dawnell Vuko Lewis

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination into the priesthood, Father Dusan Bunjevic was honored at a luncheon on February 8, 2015, at St. Archangel Michael Serbian Orthodox Church in Saratoga, California.

Father Bunjevic served St. John the Baptist Cathedral in San Francisco from 1964 until his retirement in 1999, but to ensure ample space to the sold-out event, the luncheon was held at nearby St. Archangel Michael's.

The celebratory crowd included the Bunjevic family, many of father's parishioners, people from the several parishes of the San Francisco Bay Area, and especially a group from Indiana where Father Bunjevic had begun his long service to the church at Gary's St. Sava in 1960 and where he was ordained in 1964.