Hieromartyr Platon of Banja Luka

Platon of Banja Luka (born Milivoje Jovanovic) was a bishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church who was tortured and killed in 1941, in the opening weeks of the Independent State of Croatia. Born in Belgrade on 29 September 1874, he served the Church for four decades as a monk, teacher, editor, and military chaplain before his consecration as a bishop. When the wartime authorities ordered him, as a native of Serbia, to leave his diocese, he refused to abandon his flock, and he was arrested and martyred. He is numbered among the New Martyrs of the Serbian Church, and is commemorated on April 22 and July 4.

He was born to Ilija Jovanovic, a career soldier whose family was from Trebinje, and Jelka Sokolovic, who was from Foca in Herzegovina. He received his primary schooling in Vranje and his secondary schooling in Nis before entering the Serbian Orthodox seminary in Belgrade in 1892. While still a seminary pupil he took monastic vows in 1895, receiving the name Platon, and after graduating in 1896 he was ordained deacon and presbyter. He went on to study at the Moscow Theological Academy, completing his course there in 1901.

After his return he held a succession of monastic and teaching posts: he was assigned to the Rajinovac Monastery, taught theology at Aleksinac and Jagodina, edited the official gazette of the Serbian Patriarchate, and was eventually raised to the rank of archimandrite. During the Balkan Wars and the opening months of the First World War he served as a military chaplain, and he chose to remain in occupied Serbia rather than evacuate. He was consecrated a bishop in 1936, was assigned to the Eparchy of Ohrid and Bitola in 1938, and became Bishop of Banja Luka in Bosnia shortly before the Second World War reached the Balkans.