A great man is one who collects knowledge the way a bee collects honey and uses it to help people overcome the difficulties they endure - hunger, ignorance and disease!
- Nikola Tesla

Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
- Franklin Roosevelt

While their territory has been devastated and their homes despoiled, the spirit of the Serbian people has not been broken.
- Woodrow Wilson

Serbs of the Apollo Space Program Honored

Serbs of the Apollo Space Program Honored

On the 50th anniversary of the first lunar landing of the Apollo 11 mission, the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade is organizing a series of briefings and presentations by Mr. David Vuich. Mr. Vuich is one of the seven Serbs – affectionately known as the “Serbo 7” – who helped develop the Apollo Space Program.

The “Serbo 7” Apollo Spacecraft Launch Team was comprised of Milojko “Mike” Vucelic (Director, Systems Engineering) of Garesnica, Slavonija, Danilo Bojic (Engineer, Stress Analysis) of Lipovo near Kolasin, Paul Duich (Engineer, Data Analysis) of Centerville, Iowa whose family emigrated from Mrkopolje in Lika, Milos Surbatovich (Mechanical Engineer, Docking Systems) of Niksic, Peter Galovich (Engineer, Systems Design Hudson) of Wyoming whose family emigrated from Lika, Slavoljub “Sam” Vuich (Engineer, Electronics Systems RDT&E) of Fenj in Banat, and David Vuich (Program-Project Management) of Midland, Pennsylvania, whose family hailed from Okucani, Slavonija.

Mr. Vuich is the last living member of the “Serbo 7.” He will be travelling to Belgrade, in the latter half of July, where over the course of several days he will speak to both the public and experts in Serbia about the contributions of American-Serbian scientists, engineers, and management executives to the development of the Apollo space program.

Mr. Vuich is a lifelong member of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Starting in his town of birth, Midland, PA where he served as an altar boy in the church, Mr. Vuich treasures his Orthodox faith and Serbian heritage to this day. The Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Luke in Washington, D.C. is proud to have him as one of our distinguished parishioners.

As we join in the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Apollo monumental achievement in carrying out the first lunar landing, we wish Mr. Vuich many more fruitful years! To the other members of the Serbian Apollo team, may God rest their souls and may their memory be eternal!

Source: Eastern American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church

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Bishop Irinej (Dobrijević)

His Grace Bishop Irinej

(2016–)

On 25 May 2016 the Holy Assembly of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church elected by acclamation Bishop Irinej of Australia and New Zealand to the Throne of Bishops of Eastern America following the election of Bishop Mitrophan of Eastern America to the Throne of Bishops of Canada.

He was born in 1955 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, to his father Djuro and mother Milica (nee Svilar). His elementary and secondary education was completed in Cleveland, Ohio. After attending the Cleveland Institute of Art from 1973–1975, he attended St. Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan, Pennsylvania from 1975–1979, where he graduated with a Licentiate in Theology with the academic distinction maxima cum laude. In 1980 he enrolled in St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crestwood, New York and graduated in 1982 with a Master of Divinity degree with Honorable Mention for his master’s thesis Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich: A 1921 Mission to America. Following which, he entertained studies at the Athens Centre in 2000 and 2003 receiving levels I and II certificates in contemporary Greek language.

He spent most of his career in the field of education. He lectured as visiting fellow at Loyola University in Chicago and visiting fellow at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Belgrade. For many years he was the co-editor of The Path of Orthodoxy, the official publication of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the USA and Canada.

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My Brother's Keeper

My Brother's Keeper

by Fr. Radovan Bigovic

Rare are the books of Orthodox Christian authors that deal with the subject of politics in a comprehensive way. It is taken for granted that politics has to do with the secularized (legal) protection of human rights (a reproduction of the philosophy of the Enlightenment), within the political system of so-called "representative democracy", which is limited mostly to social utility or to the conventional rules of human relations. Most Christians look at politics and democracy as unrelated with their experience of the Church herself, which abides both in history and in the Kingdom, the eschaton. Today, the commercialization of politics—its submission to the laws of publicity and the brainwashing of the masses—has literally abolished the "representative" parliamentary system. So, why bother with politics when every citizen of so-called developed societies has a direct everyday experience of the rapid decline and alienation of the fundamental aspects of modernity?

In the Orthodox milieu, Christos Yannaras has highlighted the conception of the social and political event that is borne by the Orthodox ecclesiastical tradition, which entails a personalistic (assumes an infinite value of the human person as opposed to Western utilitarian individualism) and relational approach. Fr Radovan Bigovic follows this approach. In this book, the reader will find a faithful engagement with the liturgical and patristic traditions, with contemporary thinkers, Orthodox and non-Orthodox, all in conversation with political science and philosophy. As an excellent Orthodox theologian and a proponent of dialogue, rooted in the catholic (holistic) being of the Orthodox Church and of his Serbian people, Fr Radovan offers a methodology that encompasses the above-mentioned concerns and quests.

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