Biography
Matej Stijačić
About Matej Stijačić
Matej Stijačić served Serbian Orthodox communities in the United States before returning to Europe. He came from Klobuk in Herzegovina and was a married priest with children. His American ministry included Chisholm, Minnesota, during the late 1920s.
Parish accounts give his birth year as 1883, while Zdenka Krivokuća’s published victim list gives 1890. The disagreement remains unresolved.
Džomić also credits his American years with a compilation of prayers, church hymns and responses for the liturgy.
Stijačić later served in Smiljan, where Nikola Tesla’s father had once been the Orthodox parish priest. Family historian Zoran Stijačić describes Matej’s friendship with Tesla and his work organizing a celebration of the inventor’s eightieth birthday in 1936. The same account reports that Ustaše arrested him in 1941 and killed him at Jadovno.
Velibor Džomić records conflicting accounts of his death: one places it in prison at Gospić following beatings, while another says he was taken to Velebit and killed there.
The diocesan history of Saint Basil of Ostrog in Chisholm remembers him with two other former parish priests, Teofan Beatovich and Bogolyub Gakovich. All three returned to Yugoslavia and were killed during the Second World War. The Serbian Orthodox Church lists him among the Gornji Karlovac clergy collectively recognized as saints in 2022. Their ministry is also remembered through the old church’s iconostasis, before which all three had prayed.
Wondering how to weigh the stories and sources? Learn how to read a saint biography.