Vitovnica Monastery

From Smederevo, we turn toward the Balkan Mountains. In their northwestern part, not far from the town of Petrovac, is the Vitovnica Monastery, built by King Milutin at the beginning of the 13th century. The monastery was an important regional center that managed to survive throughout the ages despite all difficulties, until it was closed by the communists. However, the Church reopened it in 1944, and a boy from the nearby village joined as a monk, later becoming the head of the renewed monastery and transforming it into one of the most important spiritual centers in Serbia today.

Theodosius of Vitovnica, who died in 1972, is one of the most important Serbian saints of our time. Each generation seeks its saints, and in the 20th century, there was a spiritual renewal of the Slavic churches under the influence of the center on Mount Athos and the mystical teachings of Theosis, the book of the Philokalia, and the practice of the Lord’s Prayer (hesychasm). This happened in Romania, Russia, Bulgaria, and Serbia as well, gaining momentum after the fall of communism.

Theodosius was born in the village of Vitovnica in 1914, and at the age of 15, he was told by doctors that he had five more years to live, which prompted him to join the Miljkov Monastery on the Holy Mountain of Rasava in the Morava Valley, where he became a disciple of Russian Orthodox exiles from the Valaam Monastery, which was a center of hesychasm in Russia in the spirit of Mount Athos. His abbot, Brother Ambrose, taught him the technique of hesychasm (Jesus Prayer). At the age of 21, he moved to the Gornjak Monastery, where he was ordained a priest, and at the age of 24, he moved to the Rakovac Monastery on Fruška Gora in Vojvodina, where he became a fully tonsured monk. He served in the Patriarchate in Peć and Belgrade in the 1940s.

In 1962, he was appointed abbot of the Vitovnica Monastery in the Balkan Mountains, where he remained until his death in 2003, receiving and greeting many visitors. Theodosius wrote several spiritual books and was involved in the renewal of the Serbian Church after the communist era. He proposed the idea that our thoughts determine the outcome of our lives, and there is a book written about him called Thoughts That Determine Our Lives – The Life of Theodosius the Elder of Vitovnica. Following his life and burial at the monastery, the place became a popular pilgrimage site.