Very Rev. Djuro Krosnjar
Fr. Djuro Krosnjar is a native of Gornja Cemernica, a small village in Krajina. He was born in 1946, in the immediate aftermath of World War II. His parents along with his parish priest Fr. Mane Lazic enrolled him to the St. Sava Seminary in Belgrade in 1962. Fr. Djuro adapted to the Belgrade environment where he enjoyed both his classes, seminary life, and watching professional soccer games there.
After graduating from seminary in Belgrade in 1967, Fr. Djuro, whose family had immigrated to America in 1966, had planned to go to Trieste to come to America, a path many Serbians took at that time to America. When government authorities learned of this plan through their monitoring of people's actions and whereabouts, he received word he would be arrested for trying to leave the country without serving in the army. He was required to enter the Yugoslav Army as a private in an infantry battalion and was sent to the ancient city of Prizren, in Kosovo and Metohija, often thought to be the most grueling location to live and work in. It was there that he faced some of the hardest communist government discrimination against the church and clergy. At the conclusion of this military service he was then allowed to join the rest of his immediate family in St. Louis, Mo.
His first summer here he was driven to St. Sava Monastery for the 4th of July to meet the bishop where he worked as a camp counselor at St. Sava Children's Camp. Fr. Djuro Krosnjar was very active in the St. Louis Holy Trinity Parish choir and was a welcomed tenor who performed many solos of folk songs and church hymns. He spent six years actively singing in Holy Trinity Church Choir of St. Louis, before meeting Anne (Vujovich-Andrich) on a trip with the choir to So. St. Paul, MN, her home parish. They were later married.
Metropolitan Bishop Iriney Kovacevic ordained Fr. Djuro a deacon at St. Sava Monastery in Libertyville less than two months after their wedding. In the ensuing years and decades he proved to be an able administrator as Metropolitan Irinej's deacon, diocesan secretary, diocesan court secretary, and as respected pastor at New Gracanica All Serbian Saints parish. During his role of diocesan secretary, Fr. Djuro accompanied the bishop on trips to war-torn areas of the former Yugoslavia to deliver the mobile medical vehicles, supplies and food donated by Gracancia Monastery and faithful from the Chicago area. He also traveled with Bishop Vasilija Veinovich throughout the Serbian parishes in Great Britain accompanying +Prince André Karageorgevich. The Bishop and Fr. Djuro served a parastos service at Windsor Castle at the graveside of Prince Andrej's and King Peter's mother, Queen Marija who is buried among the British royal family there. He also accompanied Bishop Iriney and Prince Andrej on a month long tour of the Serbian parishes of Australia. These trips had a profound impact on his life.
Following the building of Gracanica, he spent the next 16 years at Holy Resurrection Church on Palmer Square in Chicago. Fr. Djuro was editor of the church herald called "Svetosavlje-The Way of St. Sava.", a quarterly magazine that went to parishioners and church supports in America, Canada, and Europe. Prior to that Fr. Djuro worked on diocesan educational board that produced six Sunday School workbooks, a kit of 36 lessons while with helping with the Diocesan Observer when needed. Later he and popadija compiled 6 Sunday School workbooks for Serbian Orthodox Sunday Schools.
While priest at Holy Resurrection on Palmer Square, Fr. Djuro became known for his work assisting refugees and immigrants from the conflicts in Serbia to acquire medical services, housing, jobs and other forms of assistance. The Palmer kolo supported Fr. Djuro's refugee initiative with the refugees by supplying a refrigerator and kitchen full of food for each new family. Fr. Djuro became known for his work with social services making sure all parishioners had housing, government financial support, food, work and the spiritual and moral support of fellow parishioners. This work he continued at the Cathedral on Redwood Drive. Fr. Djuro and p. Anne were also very active in the life and work of St. Sava Academy the first dual language Serbian Orthodox parochial school in North America. Fr. Djuro and p. Anne are "kumovi" for the Academy.
We welcome Fr. Djuro and Popadija Anne to the St. Basil of Ostrog SOC family: DOBRO NAM DOSLI!
