Clergy Verification
This need has been verified by local Orthodox clergy.
How You Can Help
Your donations will go to transporting Nebojsa’s body from San Franscisco to Holy Trinity Monastery (Jordanville, NY) and related funeral expenses.
Nebojsa's Story
Another giant of the Spirit, in both word and deed, has left us. Nebojsa Velic, born October 2, 1948 in Nis, Serbia, near the Bulgarian border, son of the Serbian aristocrat Tryco and of a Greek mother, Paraskevi of Florina, has recently passed to the Lord. Having helped a great many people, he was the sort of man who, through his true compassion, suffered in his soul for others and prayed for them. Deeply experienced in life’s difficulties, he could always understand complex situations, diagnose them, and offer a real, long-term resolution. There will be many who miss him. May his memory be eternal!
Having completed a higher education in psychology, Nebojsa continued his studies at the State University of New York, School of Theology in Jordanville, from 1979 to 1984. For the next twelve years, living like a monk, he attended the daily services and worked all day in the monastery woodshop, making cabinets, tables, furniture and wooden coffins. He had learned all of it on the Holy Mountain of Athos and at the Monastery, both of which he loved with all his heart, and also near the border, from Greek masters of the trade.
He generously offered full hospitality to those in need, among them a future bishop of ROCOR during his post-graduate theological studies in Belgrade. He inspired many to take up the spiritual way of life, and some even to live on the Holy Mountain.
He surely deserves a worthy funeral. But in order to transport his body from California to Jordanville, New York, we need to collect the funds for that and for the related expenses.
The time has come for the monks of Holy Trinity Monastery to make a coffin for him, just as he made them in the monastery workshop for so many years. May his radiant soul rest in the hands of his Lord and Savior, and his body in the soil of his spiritual fatherland. Amen!
Sincere thanks for your consideration and your kindness.
–A monk of the Holy Mountain