Three Decades of Archpastoral Ministry of Bishop Dositej

Church of Serbia – 18/10/2020

Bishop Dositej (Despo Motika) was born on the feast of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God, on October 14, 1949, in the village of Zagoni, Olovo Municipality near Sarajevo. His pious parents, father Nedjo and mother Rosa had a number of children. Grateful to God for this priceless gift, they, faithful to their ancestral heritage, raised their children from an early age in a strong spirit of commitment to the Orthodox Church. From an early age, the young Despot, the current bishop, responded to the call of the Lord and immediately after finishing primary school, entered the service of the Holy Church of Christ as a pupil of the first generation of the Monastic School in Ostrog Monastery, Montenegro. He completed this first degree of theological training as one of the best pupils in his generation (1967-1969).

He finished the Theological seminary of St. Arsenije in Sremski Karlovci, and the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade. Due to his high success in theological education, he was sent to postgraduate studies in theology (specialization in pastoral psychology), which he attended for three years at Theological Faculties in Regensburg (Germany) and Bern (Switzerland). He took his monastic vows in the monastery of St. Nicholas on Ozren in 1970. In the same year, he was ordained to the rank of hierodeacon and hieromonk by Bishop Longin (Tomić) of Zvornik and Tuzla in the monastery of Tavna, where he performed the duty of a priest, in parallel with his studies at the Faculty of Theology.

In order to satisfy the spiritual needs of the Serbian people in South America, he was sent by the Church authorities to Argentina, where he spent from 1985-1988. organizing the Serbian Orthodox Mission with three places of worship. With the faithful, he erected the Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God in Buenos Aires. Until his election as bishop, he served as secretary of the Diocesan Board of the Canadian Diocese in Toronto. He was elected vicar bishop of the Serbian Patriarch with the title of bishop of Marca in 1989. The Holy Assembly  of Bishops assigned him a duty to help the former bishop of Western Europe,  Lavrentije (Trifunović), in church matters of that diocese.

He was ordained a bishop under the arches of the ancient Patriarchate of Pec, Kosovo and Metohia, during the meeting of the Holy Assembly of Bishops on May 22, 1990. At the end of December of the same year, at the historical meeting of the Holy Assembly of Bishops in Belgrade, during which the new Serbian Patriarch Pavle was elected, the British-Scandinavian Diocese was established and Bishop Dositej was elected its first bishop.

During his ministry, the bishop has taken care and, with the help of the clergy and the faithful has worked wholeheartedly to improve church life and mission of the Orthodox Church in the area of ​​the diocese entrusted to him. The fruits of that blessed work so far are organized parishes with a worship space and a sufficient number of priests. He established the monastery of the Protection of the Most Holy Mother of God in Erkeljung, southern Sweden.

Bishop Dositej speaks German and Spanish.

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