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The 70th Annivesary of the Martyric Death of King Alexander of Serbia
Marked in Parishes of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Russian
Orthodox Church Outside of Russia
On October
9, 2004, by ukase of His Holiness Patriarch Pavle of Serbia (who
serves the divine liturgy every day) every parish of the Serbian
Orthodox Church performed funerary liturgies and pannikhidas for
King Alexander I Karadjordjevic of Serbia on the 70th anniversary
of his death as a martyr. Commemorative litanies were also performed
in parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia for
the friend of the Russian Church and her people, and meetings commemorating
his memory were organized.
King Alexander
was a man of profound faith, a builder of innumerable churches,
a generous donor, the first helper of our settling in this land
of piety. After 500 years under the Turkish yoke and the years of
the brutal Austrian occupation that followed, the Serbian Orthodox
Church was finally establishing itself. This was accomplished by
His Holiness Patriarch Varnava and King Alexander. There was absolutely
no Orthodox religious project that did not receive generous support
from the king.
During the
civil war in Russia, King Alexander was one of the few who understood
the significance of this struggle. In part, he offered to General
Denikin to form a military group from Yugoslav prisoners of war,
offering them to Gen. Denikin's command. With regard to the Bolsheviks,
King Alexander immediately assumed an uncompromising stance. He
refused the establishment of a Soviet embassy in his country. The
king knew no compromises with his conscience. During his lifetime,
even before 1939, Yugoslavia did not accept the new regime in Russia
and did not have any contact with it. The king paid for his staunchness
with his life. His death was determined by the fact that he categorically
refused to recognize the Bolsheviks. Through intermediaries, allegedly
only "Croatian nationalists," an international terrorist
organization operating out of Moscow was preparing the takeover
of Europe.
He remained
on the throne until October 9, 1934, when he died in Marseilles
during a visit to France as a result of a criminal international
conspiracy, shot to death by a hired killer, Vladimir Georgiev-Chernozemskij
(Velucko Kerin), a member of a Macedonian terrorist organization
working with the Croatian Ustashe.
The tragic
death of the king, a knight of honor, was an irreplaceable loss
not only for the Serbian people, but for the Russian refugees. Few
remembered the good done by Russia before the revolution; King Alexander
was one of those who never forgot the traditional friendship between
Russia and Serbia. He assumed the role of protector over a multitude
of Russian people, hospitably opening the doors to his young nation
of Yugoslavia and granting them the opportunity to live and work
there.
King Alexander
gave invaluable help towards the preservation of Russian culture
in the emigration, granting stipends to Russian writers out of his
own pocket. When, in 1928, the first conference of Russian writers
abroad was held in Belgrade, of greatest importance was the knowledge
that they were guests of an Orthodox Slavic king. Having been educated
in Russia, the king gave many Russian children the possibility of
receiving an education; his personal funds paid for the upkeep of
schools and boarding-houses for the children of Russian refugees.
The king's money built a "Russian House" in Belgrade dedicated
to Tsar Nicholas Alexandrovich, where there were boys' and girls'
high schools, elementary school, kindergarten, medical clinic, laboratory
and a small chapel, a high school and parish church, where His Eminence
Metropolitan Anastassy of blessed memory loved to serve.
When the "Russian
House" was being built, the king said: "We must preserve
the Russian soul for the Russian people. See how they came here
with their families. Each family is a nation in miniature. Believe
that the Russian people will find within their four walls their
homeland, if the family breathes the Russian atmosphere. The Russian
school, elementary and middle schools both, must always strengthen
within them Russian nationalism, without which their family is a
leaf torn from a mighty tree." The king said: "To take
in, to feed, to heal is good and worthy, but if at the same time
you do not give the Russian person a place for his soul, especially
in the church of God, at lectures, concerts, exhibitions, and also
their own theaters, you will have done nothing for them. Remember
always that if there is one nation that will sacrifice all for spiritual
benefit—it is the Russian people."
Eternal memory
to King Alexander of Serbia, and to the fraternal nations of Serbia
and Russia—a blessed renewal in faith and piety!
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