“We Felt Peace”: Serbian Saints Attended Church Through the NATO Bombing (1999)

During the 1999 NATO airstrikes on Serbia, going to Church meant passing over bridges and by chemical plants that were likely bombing targets. Yet the members of the Sremska Mitrovica, Novi Sad, and Beograd branches kept attending all of their meetings with their children. “Once they made it to the meetinghouse,” recalled Ðorðe Ivanović, “We felt peace.”

In Beograd the protection over the Saints was unmistakable: the street where the meetinghouse stood was bombed at least ten times, and buildings only 200 feet from the Church were destroyed — yet the members continued to gather. “It was a time for members to exercise their faith,” said Irena Marić of the Belgrade Branch. “Long prayers were offered, the saints on their knees, with tears streaming from their eyes, worrying about loved ones and grieving for those who were brutally killed.” Amid daily bombs, the Serbian Saints found in their meetings the one place the war could not reach.