Hieromartyr 20th century

Hieromartyr Budimir of Dobrun

died 1945

Also known as Будимир Соколовић · Budimir Sokolović

A Serbian priest of the Dobrun area killed during the Second World War.

Feast Day
June 28
Draft
Draft — pending review. Not yet verified for publication.
Commemorated as

Holy New Hieromartyr Budimir of Dobrun

Life

Budimir of Dobrun, surnamed Sokolović, was a Serbian Orthodox priest who served the parish of Dobrun and was killed during and after the Second World War. He is venerated among the Serbian Orthodox New Martyrs of the twentieth century and is commemorated on June 28. The Church numbers him among the New Martyrs of Dabar-Bosnia and Mileševa, a body of clergy and faithful who suffered during the wartime occupation of Yugoslavia and the Communist period that followed.

According to the accounts preserved by his family, Budimir belonged to a remarkably long line of priests; he is described as one of the latest of dozens of generations of the Sokolović family to enter the priesthood. He served as parish priest in Dobrun, and during the war he and his family were taken to a concentration camp. Tradition relates that in 1944 he served as a spiritual counselor to a Serbian band that resisted the German occupation, and that the same year he rode into the village of Milanovac to embrace his young son for what proved to be the last time.

Budimir lived to see the expulsion of the German forces but did not survive the anti-Communist struggle that followed. He was imprisoned and executed by the Communist authorities, by tradition in May 1945, and his body was cast into an unmarked grave in a field. The hiddenness of his burial became part of his memory: later searchers are said to have recovered only fragments — part of a skull, a wooden cross, myrrh, and a prayer book — from a field. The Serbian Orthodox Church glorified him as a hieromartyr among the new martyrs of the Second World War.

Contributions & Legacy

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Family and Priestly Lineage

The Sokolović family is remembered for an exceptionally long unbroken succession of priests, and Budimir stood within that inheritance. His son, Vasilije Sokolović, continued in the priesthood, later emigrating to the United States, where he served Serbian Orthodox parishes in Pennsylvania and Ohio and became pastor of St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Parma, Ohio. By his son's recollection, the last he saw of his father was in 1944, when Budimir rode into the village on horseback during the war.

Martyrdom and Glorification

Budimir's death is placed in 1945, after the German withdrawal, when he was seized and executed by the Communist authorities and buried where his grave could not be found. He is counted among the New Martyrs of Dabar-Bosnia and Mileševa, a company of Serbian clergy and faithful — led in the wider Dabar-Bosnia witness by Metropolitan Petar (Zimonjić) — who perished during and after the war. The Serbian Orthodox Church received him into its calendar as a hieromartyr, and he is commemorated on June 28.

Notes

Reposed 1945. Among the New Martyrs of Dabar-Bosnia and Mileševa.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_saints_of_the_Serbian_Orthodox_Church