I was a citizen of a small country called Serbia, and I am still a citizen of a great country called The Universe. In my first fatherland there is now no other light except the brightness of tears. But in my second fatherland there is always the splendid and silent light of the sun. My little country is now a great tear-drop, a shining and silent tear-drop. A gentleman from South Africa wrote to me the other day and asked about my country—"why it is so shining"? I replied: Just because it is now transformed into a big tear-drop, therefore it is so shining that even you from South Africa can see its splendor. I come as an echo of the weeping splendor of my country which is now plunged into the worst slavery. I come as a voice beyond the grave to your famous island, brethren and sisters, not to accuse, not to complain, but to say by what invisible bonds my country is tied to yours. I will say at once, plainly and simply—by common beliefs and common hopes.

At the time when Saint Patrick preached Christ's Gospel in heathen Ireland, the Serbs were heathen as well. Their gods, with Perun at the head, corresponded to Wothan and his divine colleagues, whose names are recalled in your names of the days of the week still.

About the time when Saint Augustine came over here, met Queen Bertha and baptized King Ethelbert in Saint Martin's Church in Canterbury, the conversion of the heathen Serbs had made good progress.

In the time of Alfred the Great, who was "the most complete embodiment of all that is great, all that is lovable in the English temper," as an English historian praises him so justly, the Serbs received God's word in their own language from the Slav apostles, Cyril and Methodius, and soon afterwards the Christian faith was officially introduced and established among them.

In the time of the Conquest, when the Norman and Danish kings disputed the possession of England, the Serbian provinces were fought over by the Greek, Bulgar and Avar rulers. But the belief in Christ grew more and more uninterruptedly.

When Richard the Lion-hearted sailed from England to the Holy Land, not to fight for the national existence, as we to-day speak of it, but to fight for the most unselfish and idealistic aim, for Cross and Christian Freedom, Serbia was already opening a great epoch of physical as well as spiritual strength. Our king Nemania [St. Stepan Nemanja–MRJ], the founder of a dynasty which ruled in Serbia for nearly 300 years, had heard tales and songs about the English king with the lion's heart, and had helped the same cause, the cause of the Crusades, very much. His son, Saint Sava, organized the Christian Church wonderfully, and wonderfully he inspired the educational and scholarly work in the state created by his father. This Saint Sava, the Archbishop of Serbia, after he had traveled all over Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, preaching the Gospel of the Son of God, died in Bulgaria. His body was transferred to and buried in a monastery in Herzegovina. Afterwards, in times of national hardships and slavery, great pilgrimages took place to the grave of the Saint, which became the comforting and inspiring center for the oppressed nation; the Turks destroyed the tomb, carried the body over to Belgrade and burnt it, in order to lessen the Serbian national and religious enthusiasm. The result was just the contrary. On the very same place where Saint Sava's body was burnt there is now a Saint Sava's chapel; close to this chapel a new Saint Sava's seminary is to be erected, and also Saint Sava's cathedral of Belgrade. And over all there is an acknowledged protection of Saint Sava by all the Serbian churches and schools, and a unifying spirit of Saint Sava for all the Serbian nation.

Saint Sava's belief was the same as the belief of Saint Patrick and Saint Augustine. His hopes were the same as theirs too. He believed in the one saving Gospel of Christ, as they did. He hoped men could be educated by this divine Gospel, to be heroic in suffering and pure and holy in the enjoyments of life, just as the great saints of this island doubtless hoped and worked.

[Our Serbian monarchs] represented almost throughout our history the model of the true religious spirit and of the hopeful optimism of the nation. That can be said especially for the kings since Saint Sava's time until the definite conquest of Serbia by the Sultans, i.e. since Richard and John's time until the time of the Black Prince and Wycliffe, and from the Black Prince and Wycliffe till the end of the Wars of the Roses in England. Our kings did what all the kings in the world do; they fought and ruled, they ate and drank, and danced and played, and still the majority of them took monastic vows and died in solitude and asceticism, and a great part of them were recognized by the people as saints and invoked by the oppressed in the dark times as the advocates of national justice, before God. They built beautiful churches and monasteries in the towns and forests. They strove always to build the "Houses of God" more solid and more costly than their own houses. Their castles and palaces they built to their own glory, and their pleasures no longer exist, but the churches they built to the glory of God still exist. In these churches our pious kings of old prayed; in these churches afterwards our hard oppressed people wept during the time of slavery; in these "Houses of God" the fanatic Turks enclosed their cattle, their goats and sheep, their horses and donkeys, thus abasing and ridiculing our sanctuaries. But the more these sanctuaries have been abased and ridiculed by the enemy, the more they have been respected and adored by the people.

We Serbs cannot complain that our Middle Ages were as dark as the people in Europe are accustomed to represent their own. During the three hundred years of the reign of [St. Stepan] dynasty not one of our kings was killed. The importance of this fact only the historian can understand who knows well the history of our neighbors, the Byzantines and Venetians of that time, who in many other respects had been our teachers. We learnt many useful as well as perilous things from them, but we did not learn their art of poisoning kings, of torturing them, suffocating them, making them blind, cutting out their tongues, etc. It is only in modern times that we committed the great sins of the Middle Ages, namely, killing our kings and making civil wars. During the last hundred years we killed only three of our kings: Karageorge, Michael and Alexander. In modern times three have been killed in a hundred years, and in the Middle Ages not one in three hundred years!—a fact as unusual as curious. But you should remember that our modern times in Serbia began after five hundred years of a bloody slavery and dark education under Turkish tyranny.

I mention our great sins not in order to excuse but to accuse my people. I will not even accuse the Turks, our rulers and educators during five hundred years. Our ancestors were accustomed to see human blood spilt every day. They were accustomed to hear about strangled sultans and viziers and pashas. And, besides, they lived through the record of all the crimes ever written in history; the Turks arranged a horrible bloody bath in executing their plan of killing all the leaders and priests among the Serbs! It happened only a hundred years ago, in the lifetime of Chateaubriand and Wordsworth, in the time of Pitt and Burke, in the time of your strenuous mission work among the cannibals. Our ancestors lived in blood and walked in blood. Our five hundred years' long slavery had only two colors—red and black.

And yet I will not accuse the Turks but ourselves. Neither our kings of old, nor our ancestors before the enslavement set us the example of killing kings. Rather the strangers that conquered and ruled our country set us such an example. But it is our fault for having followed an abominable example like that. I confess our sins before you, and pray: Forgive us, good brothers! Forgive us, if you can. God will not forgive us. That is the belief of our people. God is merciful, but still He does not forgive without punishment. God is righteous and sinless, and therefore He has right to punish every sin of man. But it were a monstrous pretension for men to punish every sin, being themselves sinful, very sinful. We will forgive all your mediaeval, if you will forgive us our modern sins. Remember! God will begin to "forgive us our trespasses" only at the moment when we all forgive the trespasses of all those that have sinned against us. He will forgive us then, because He will not have anything more to punish. God's mercilessness begins when our mercifulness ends. God will rule the world by justice as long as we rule it by our mercilessness. He will rule the world by mercifulness when we forgive each other, but not before.

To forgive the sins of men means for us nothing more than to confess our own sins. To forgive the sins of men means for God nothing less than to let the events be without consequences. And it contradicts human experiences or science.

It contradicts also the experiences of our kings of old. They saw and heard of the sins punished, and they feared sin. They regarded humility and mercifulness as the greatest virtues. On the day of the "Slava," which means a special Serbian festival of the saint patron of the family (every Serbian family has its patron among the saints or angels which it celebrates solemnly every year, instead of celebrating their own birthdays), on this day our kings themselves served their guests at the table. It was a visible sign of their humility before the divine powers that rule human life. Besides, on every festive occasion in the royal court was placed a bountiful table with meat and drink for beggars and the most abject poor. The king was obliged by his Christian conscience and even by national tradition to be merciful. How the people regarded the kings is clear from popular sayings like these:

The belief of our kings was the same belief which Saint Sava preached, their hopes were his hopes. God is the eternal and powerful king of the world; Christ is the way of salvation from sin; good must be in the end victorious over evil. That was the belief and hope of our kings. Was it not likewise the belief and hope of King Ethelbert, of Saint Oswald and Edward the Confessor? Did not Richard the Lion-hearted struggle for the same belief and hope in Palestine, which was at his time as far as a voyage around this planet to-day? Is not this same belief and hope the corner stone of Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's, of this church and of every church on this island, and of every great and beautiful deed that you inherited from your ancestors? Yet the belief and hopes of our kings were never different from the belief and hope of the Serbian nation.

The Serbian people have shown their individuality only in the dark time of their slavery. The saint and the heroic kings died, but their souls lived still in the hearts of their people, in the white churches they built among the green mountains, in their deeds of mercifulness and repentance. The enslaved people were conscious that there were no more kings of their own who represented all that was the best in the Serbian soul, and that they, the people, have now themselves to represent the Serbian name, belief and hopes before God and their enemies. And they have done it.

At the time when Columbus sailed over the seas to find a new continent in the name of the most Christian King of Spain, the Serbian suffering for the Christian religion had already begun.

At the time when the famous English thinker Thomas More wrote Utopia, preaching brotherhood among men based upon religious and political freedom, the Serbs stood there without any shadow of religious and political freedom, dreaming of and singing about the human brotherhood founded only on the ruins of both tyranny and slavery.

At the time when the great Shakespeare wrote his tragedies in ink, the Serbs wrote theirs in blood.

At the time when Cromwell fought in the name of the Bible for the domestic freedom of Parliament, [apparently, the great saint knew nothing about Cromwell the Bloody, Protestant Patron of Genocide–MRJ] the Serbian leaders gathered in the lonely forests to tell each other of the crimes that they saw defiling the Cross, to confess to each other their cruel sufferings and to encourage each other to live.

At the time when Milton wrote Paradise Lost, the Serbs felt more than anybody in the world the loss of Paradise.

At the time when Livingstone went to dark Africa with the light of human civilization, Serbia was ruled by darker powers even than Central Africa.

At the time when the great English philosopher Locke wrote his famous book on the education of men, the people of Serbia had no schools and no teachers at all; they educated themselves by the memories of the great deeds of the heroes of the past, by looking at their kings' churches, and by glorifying a death for justice and a life of suffering.

At the time when Adam Smith wrote his famous work, The Wealth of Nations, the Serbian nation possessed only one form of wealth, and that was the inward wealth of the glorious inheritance of strong belief and of bright hopes. All other forms of wealth that it saw around in the large world, including its own physical life, belonged not to it but to its enemies.

At the time when your learned priests and bishops discussed the subtle theological questions of the relations between time and eternity, between justice and forgiveness, between the Son and the Holy Ghost, between transcendence and omnipresence, our priests and patriarchs had to defend the religion of the Cross from the aggressive Crescent, and to protect the lives of the oppressed, and to lead and inspire the souls of their flock. I think both your and our priests did their duty according to the time and circumstances under which they lived and worked.

This has always been our national motto. It is written on our flag and in the hearts of each of us. Our motto never was "For existence" or "For vital interests." That was an unknown form of language to our kings of old, and that is still a language very strange for our ears to hear to-day. We never fought indeed solely for a poor existence in this world. We fought always rather for the ideal contentment of this terrestrial existence. We fought not for life only, but for what makes one's life worth living—"For Cross and Freedom!"

The Cross is mentioned first, and then Freedom. Why?

Because the Cross of Christ is the condition of a real freedom. Or, because the Cross is for God's sake and our freedom is for our sake. We should fight for God's sake first and then for our own. That was the idea. Or, because Cross and Freedom are two words for the same thing. The religion of the Cross involves Freedom, and real Freedom is to be found only in the religion of the Cross.

Here are a few Serbian proverbs that tell of this:

[It is worth noting here that these proverbs are empirical evidence–sociological data–of the sophistication and profundity of Serbian popular political theory. No academic dealing in Serbia–save myself–has ever taken these saying seriously. It speaks volumes about the Serbian nation and their social vision, not to mention the competence of contemporary “Balkan specialists”–MRJ]

I observed during this world-struggle the conduct, deeds and words of our Serbian neighbors, and I was in the end both very sorry and very glad. I was very sorry as I read the declaration of a Bulgarian statesman: "We Bulgars must be on the side of the victors." I was very glad remembering that never in the whole Serbian history have such words been uttered by a responsible person. Our kings of old said very often that Serbia must fight on the side of justice, even if justice has for the moment no visible chance to be victorious. Our saint King, [St.] Lazar, refused on the eve of the battle of Kosovo to negotiate with the Turkish Sultan, whom he regarded as a bearer of injustice and an enemy of Christianity.

I was very sorry to see that Greece broke her pledged word and thoughtlessly refused to keep her treaty with Serbia, whereas France with England, who had no signed treaty with Serbia, came and did what in the first place it was Greece's duty to do. I was still more glad and hopeful in regard to the future of mankind, seeing a great difference of moral views between the leading nations of human civilization like the English and French, and a small nation like the Greek, which is commencing to learn again what many hundred years ago Greece taught all other nations. And I was very glad remembering that in our own Serbian history there is no case of such an example of infidelity or even of hesitation to fulfil the pledged word of the nation.

In this respect the Serbian women excelled as well as men. Therefore, and because I am speaking before you, brothers and sisters, whose country may be proud not only of a large number of great men of every kind, but of great and famous women as well, I must mention the memorable qualities of the Serbian women in the long fight for Cross and Freedom. What sacrifices for Cross and Freedom the Serbian women have made cannot be enumerated from this pulpit, but only slightly touched upon in a few examples. I take just three splendid names: Miliza, Yerina and Ljubiza.

Queen Miliza was a lady of a peaceful domestic character. But she was also the wife of the most tragic king in our Serbian history, of King Lazar, who perished with all his army on the field of Kosovo fighting for Cross and Freedom against Islam rushing over Europe.

She had nine brothers—nine brothers and a father. All were killed on Kosovo together with King Lazar, and Miliza survived that catastrophe.

After the death of King Lazar, Queen Miliza ruled the country together with her son, Stephen the Tall. But Sultan Bayazet asked three things from the new rulers in Serbia. Firstly, he asked for Miliza's daughter Mara for his harem. Miliza gave her daughter. Then Bayazet asked a second, more dreadful thing, namely, that his unfortunate mother-in-law should build a mosque in Krushevaz, the Serbian capital at that time, so as to have a place where he could pray when he came to visit her. There existed and still exists a beautiful church built by King Lazar. Now Miliza was constrained to build, close to this dear monument of her husband, in which she prayed every day for his soul and for the salvation of Serbia, a Turkish mosque. She agreed silently and she protested silently. Then Bayazet asked a third still more dreadful thing, namely, that Stephen the Tall should help him with his troops in a time of danger for the Turkish Empire. Queen Miliza with a broken heart advised her son to sign such a treaty in order to save the rest of the State and people. But very soon it happened that Bayazet needed and asked for Stephen's help against the formidable Mongol conqueror Tamerlane. Stephen hated both the Asiatic monsters—Bayazet and Tamerlane—equally, and it was more profitable for him to break the treaty with Bayazet and to help Tamerlane, who had more chance. But he remained faithful to his pledged word. Bayazet was beaten, taken prisoner and caged as a beast by Tamerlane. And Stephen, after having fought splendidly for his ally with the Serbian cavalry, came home. When thinking over the present conduct of our Greek ally, I am reminded very often of this noble and loyal king of my country. Queen Miliza could not endure any longer all the terrible changes from bad to worse; she transferred all the power to her son, built a wonderful monastery, Ljubostinja, near Krushevaz, where she as a nun found a retreat in which to pray and to live, until the end of her weary and melancholy life.

Queen Yerina [Irene] was the last Serbian ruler in the country, which slowly sank into slavery. She was very intelligent and very energetic. The Turkish Sultan took two sons of hers as hostages. She gave them up, and she continued to rule the country. But both of her sons were blinded by red-hot irons and sent back to their mother. Even this did not break Yerina's energy. She constructed great fortresses all over the country to protect the people from the enemy's invasion. She never had any rest, thinking and working to save Serbia. She offered the most obstinate resistance to the Turks as well as to the discontented faction among the Serbs. Many of her contemporaries were ungrateful to her and called her the "cursed Yerina," but still posterity bestows upon her great admiration and sympathy.

Princess Ljubiza came on the scene of our history only a hundred years ago, in the days of the Serbian revolution and resurrection. As Queen Miliza and Yerina sacrificed all to save the honor of Serbia, so Ljubiza did her best to help her husband, Prince Milosh, to liberate the country from the Turks. Once after the Second Revolution broke out, the Serbian troops were engaged in a bloody battle on Morava River. But the Turks were in an overwhelming majority, besides that they had better arms and more munitions. The frightened Serbian troops fled. Ljubiza saw that the situation was quite decisive for the whole future, ran to meet the soldiers, and to admonish them to go back and fight.

"What wretched soldiers you are!" she cried. "Are not the Turks made of flesh and blood as you? Cannot their blood be shed as yours? Whither are you running? Home? But we women only are at home. Well, come home, take our distaff and spin, and give us your rifles; we will go and fight."

The soldiers were so ashamed and encouraged by this remarkable woman that they turned back and began to fight anew so fiercely that the enemy was confusedly beaten and dispersed, and a decisive victory won by the Serbs.

For Cross and Freedom fought the Serbian women directly or indirectly, not only the queens and princesses, but all the peasant women as well, if not otherwise, then at least in giving life and education to the fighters, whom powerful England repeatedly called her worthy allies.

England too, is fighting for cross and freedom. not for existence, not for sea, not for wealth, but for Cross and Freedom, for the Christian Cross and for the Freedom of the smaller nations.

[Unfortunately, this is an untruth--though I think the saint realizes it is a falsehood. Not to show any disrespect to the great saint, but one must remember, that this speech was given at the height of World War I, where England, for once, was fighting on the side of Serbia and Russia. However, it has escaped the great saint that Turkey, who St. Nikolaij rightly excoriates, was artificially propped up by the British for many years, as a counterweight to Russia. Serbia’s agony against the Turks was prolonged by the perfidy of British foreign policy. Apparently, St. Nikolaij is being diplomatic, given his audience. Of course, Britain was the tormentor of “smaller nations,” from Ireland to South Africa–MRJ]

It means in other words: for God's cause. For who created the small nations if not He that created all great and small things in this wonderful world? Or who has the divine right and sad duty to exterminate, to suffocate, to enchain, the small creations of the Highest if the Highest wants them to exist? Great Britain justified her greatness by entering this war so as to protest against the violation of right, even by those who agreed to this right, and to protect the small and poor. It is easy to be physically great, but it is difficult to be morally great.

Great is the power which violates the right, still greater is the power which protects the right. To destroy is much easier than to build. To be great and to be proud means not to be great at all. To be great and to be modest means real greatness and belief in God. For who can be proud believing in God? Or who can feel God in this Universe and still say, I am great? Our modesty is only our confession that there is a God. Since we see both ends of our life—birth and death—so near us, we must be humiliated.

Yet who can see any end of God, either in the past or in the future? Where are all the greatest empires of the past? All is dust under the feet of the Eternal. [Is this a veiled slap at the British Empire?–MRJ] Whither are we all going, great or small? To be dust under His feet. From this dust will survive only the small portion of God's spirit that dwells in this dust. All our thoughts and feelings, and deeds and strivings, and struggles and passions, which are directed towards dust will die together with our bodily dust. Only that portion of our being which is directed towards God will survive, will continue to live in the presence of God, will see God. For God only can see God.

Fighting for Belgium, for Serbia and Montenegro, for Armenia, Poland and Bohemia, for all the poor and oppressed—Great Britain is fighting for God's cause. For whose cause indeed is Belgium's and Serbia's, if not God's cause? I wonder who would protect all the oppressed in the world if not this country, in which God's word is more taught and learned than in any other, and which is endowed with all good gifts that God can give to mortals? Yet fighting for God's cause, one fights best for one's own. Yes, we fight always best for our own cause when we have it least in sight. England entered this war not after a long calculation; she entered the war spontaneously and only afterwards she put the question to herself: Why did I enter this war?

Now England is conscious why she entered the war. She knows now that somebody else pushed her into this war, and that she is fighting for somebody else's cause. This somebody else is—God. The sons of Great Britain going to the East to fight are going the same pathway as their ancestors went in the time of the Crusaders. The same way, the same aim: to save the honor of the Cross and to fight for Freedom! It is the pathway of supreme suffering, but also the only pathway of real glory and merit. Any other way for England's greatness was impossible. England had to choose either the way of pettiness or of greatness. She chose the second. God bless England! [Every Irishman in the world is simultaneously choked right then–MRJ]

We pray to Thee, our Father, in order not to change Thy will but ours. Thy will be done! If Serbia is an impediment to human civilization and an evil, as our German brothers think, Father, make of Serbia a salt lake before they make of her a cemetery. Yet Thy will be done and not ours. We are thine in our righteousness and in our sins. What is, indeed, the whole of our planet? A small grain of dust. What are we, then, on this small grain of dust? We, men, either great or little? We, nations, rich or poor? We, the churches, either right or wrong? One word only I dare to say: the silence in Thy presence shall be our name, and our prayer. Even on the brightest and most peaceful day of our life, there is no true light except Thee. How much more we need Thy light in the darkness of the present moment! We are a small grain of dust under Thy throne, but remember, the only grain of dust which can consciously worship Thee. That shall be our only glory and pride among our brothers: animals, plants, and stones. But in worshiping Thee we become fellows of the stars. Lord, be our everlasting Sun and cast Thy light on every star, now and for ever. Amen.