Archbishop Jovan, of which nothing has been written in English, was central to the revival of the western and Gregorian rite among Orthodox Serbs, and significantly, Old Catholic Yugoslavs. Ivan Dijkovic was born Orthodox in 1940, and, as a young man, ran away to join a monastery. His father, enraged at his action, took him from the enclosure, though, as he lay dying years later, repented of his hasty decision. Ivan was married, to some extent against his will, and divorced a short time later.
As it turns out, the brother of St. Nikolai Velimirovic was close to Ivan, and told him to seek out the Old Catholic movement of the Utrecht commemoration, as there was no western rite movement yet in Yugoslavia. At that time, many in the Serbian church thought the Old Catholics were essentially “western rite Orthodox” and treated them as brothers in the faith rather than as schismatics. Even recently, Patriarch +Pavle, now retired, has made statements accepting the Orthodoxy of the Old Catholics, as they are perceived as being pro-Serbian in their fight against Vatican centralization, and, even more, are more pro-Yugoslav, due to their association with the Cardinal Archbishop Jozef Strossmayer of Croatia, the man who led the charge against the doctrine of “papal infallibility” during Vatican Council I. This is eccentric ecclesiology based more on perceived political connections rather than theology, which, among the Old Catholics, was always a little foggy. As far as the Utrecht communion was concerned, the Russian church had condemned them as “rationalists,” and not without reason, as they had denied the real presence. Other Old Catholic sects, however, rebelled at this.
It was not long before the talented Fr. Ivan began to tire of the arbitrary theology of the Old Catholic movement. The Utrecht Concord rejected monasticism, and, in some circles, rejected the cultus of saints so as to more easily merge themselves to other western, non-papal movements such as the Anglican. Apparently, the Serbian church had erred in believing the Old Catholic movement to be in some manner “Orthodox.” By now, Fr. Ivan had been made a Vicar Bishop, which, in the nomenclature of the Old Catholics, has something of the rank of a Corbishop (sometimes Choirbishop) in the western rite, that is, more like a “monseigneur” than a bishop.
Regardless, Bishop Ivan had traveled to New York to seek out the Ukrainian western rite Synod of Palladios, and, as a result, had an audience with Archbishop +John (Lo Bue), who represented that Synod for New York and New Jersey. After a long talk, Ivan agreed to join the ancient western Orthodox faith, and Archbishop +John was requested to take a trip to semi-Marxist Yugoslavia and inspect the facilities that this new archdiocese was developing. Eventually, the entire Old Catholic church of Yugoslavia became part of the Ukrainian western rite Synod, and today, part of the Synod of Milan. In 1984, archbishop +John accepted that entire church into the western rite Synod, founded by +Palladios.
Archbishop +John, in traveling to Yugoslavia, was forced to meet with the Council of Ministers of the post-Tito Marxist government. He was sternly ordered to “not expand” the church, but to “merely keep it as it was.” No new buildings could be erected, nor could any clergy be ordained. Since the Old Catholic Orthodox refused such demands, it became a catacomb church, with minimal relations with the then-patriarch +Germanos. In general, Germanos showed little interest in the movement, though there are reports of clergy who clandestinely encouraged the movement. For his part +John disobeyed the order of the state, and ordained clergy at midnight services, most notable the priest Gabriel, now a close associate of the ailing Patriarch Pavle, and is Milan’s contact within the Serbian church. Fr. Ivan was tonsured a monk, and given the name Jovan, and soon, was elevated to bishop over the newly created Serbian Orthodox Church of the western rite. Initially, the services were the newer Tridentine ritual, but, with proper guidance, the Old Gregorian rite was eventually used exclusively.
There were only four institutions, the same that exist today, two parishes and two monasteries. This, however, should not be indicative of the size of the church, since no new buildings could be erected. Services at all the institutions were packed to the gills, and even more so when an icon of Schema-bishop +Theodore (Irtel) was placed in the Belgrade church, which began to perform miracles and heal the sick, according to the faithful. Once this became known, many Serbian Orthodox began attending the western rite services, and some of the more regime-friendly clergy began to rebel against the fledgling church, though no punishments were forthcoming. From this, the western rite became better known in Yugoslavia.
At the same time, more and more anti-communists began attending the services of the semi-catacomb western rite church rather than the ecumenically oriented state-approved churches. +Jovan made his antipathy to ecumenism clear in that he believed himself deceived by the Old Catholic and Anglican claims, claims which even fooled the erudite St. Nikolai of Ohrid. While the other western churches put up a front of traditionalism, behind the scenes they were involved with destroying some of the basic ideas and traditions of the church. While the Old Catholics believed themselves to promote the “ancient faith,” they banned the veneration of the Theotokos and heaped scorn on monasticism. Catholics from Slovenia and Croatia began to attend the ancient Gregorian Services, since they despaired of anything good coming out of the Novus Ordo Catholics. Hence, the position of the western rite Serbs was one of isolation and anti-ecumenism, which, at the time, was sound policy under the post-Tito Marxist state.
Even with this, however, Jovan was highly missionary minded, and looked to the tradition of the great Anglo-Saxon monks as models in missionary work. Many Moslems from Bosnia converted to the western rite Serbian church, and more and more disgruntled Roman Catholics supported his mission. The church itself was multi-ethnic, including Serbs, Hungarians, Croats and Slovenes, and therefore moved from Serbianism proper to an idea of a Christian Yugoslavia. Jovan held that the western rite could solve, or at least alleviate, some of the religious problems of the Yugoslav federation, permitting the Orthodox faith to appeal to those who no longer trusted the Croatian Catholic church. Like Palladios, the church of Jovan was anti-ecumenical, yet multi-ethnic and firmly traditional.