Saint Justin was born on March 25, 1894, in the southern Serbian town of Vranje. He was baptized Evangelos with the surname Popović.
He studied the Holy Gospel, as well as the Synaxaria of Saints and then the texts of the Holy Fathers of the Church. He became a great theologian.
He said: “Orthodoxy is not a library, which you can study, but an experience that you are called to live empirically.”
By nature a philosopher, Saint Justin enrolled in the School of St. Sava in Belgrade.
After his graduation in 1914, during the early part of World War I, in autumn of 1914, Blagoje served as a student nurse.
Following the course of the Serbian army, he found refuge in Corfu. On the way, he felt ready to dedicate his life to Christ and became a monk on January 1, 1916. He was named after the holy martyr and philosopher Justin.
Later, he went to Athens to study. There, he showed his great love for Greek education and Theology. He received his doctorate in Pastric Studies in 1926, with the subject “The Problem of Personality and Cognition According to St. Macarius of Egypt.”
He passed on his love for the Greek Orthodox Tradition to his spiritual children. Among them are the two hierarchs, who reposed in the Lord recently, Amfilohije, Metropolitan of Montenegro, and Atanasije Jevtić, Bishop of Zahumlje and Herzegovina.
During the German occupation, he was in various monasteries and in Belgrade, where he supported the Serbian people.
With the establishment of the new leadership in Yugoslavia in 1945, Father Justin was expelled from the University of Belgrade along with 200 professors. He was soon arrested in southern Serbia and imprisoned.
Expelled from the university and deprived of his human, religious, and political rights, he lived confined to the Ćelije Monastery, Valievo.
Saint Justin reposed in the Lord on March 25, 1979, the day of the Annunciation and his birthday, and his memory is solemnly commemorated on June 14.
He left a great theological experience for every Orthodox Christian as a Father and Teacher of the Church.
Source: Church of Cyprus