Varnava Nastić

Varnava Nastić was born Vojislav Nastić on 31 January 1914 in Gary, Indiana, in the United States, the son of Serbian immigrants from Herzegovina. His birth in an American industrial city later made him the first native-born American to be raised to the episcopate in the Serbian Orthodox Church. While he was still a child, the family left the United States and returned to the Balkans, settling in Sarajevo in the interwar Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia). He completed secondary education there and then studied at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology of the University of Belgrade, graduating in 1937; he also followed courses in philosophy. After his studies he served as a catechist, teaching the Orthodox faith in secondary schools in Sarajevo.

In 1940 he was tonsured a monk and received the name Varnava (Barnabas). He was ordained deacon and priest and continued to serve in the Metropolitanate of Dabar-Bosna. His ministry unfolded through the Second World War, when Bosnia was subjected to occupation and the Independent State of Croatia and when the Serbian Orthodox population suffered extreme violence, and then through the establishment of communist rule after 1945. The new Yugoslav authorities sought to subordinate the Church to the state. Varnava was known for preaching and pastoral work that refused that subordination. In 1947 he was consecrated Bishop of Hvosno, a titular see, and assigned as a vicar bishop with responsibilities connected to church life in Bosnia.

In 1948 he was arrested and, in a political trial typical of the early communist period, convicted of anti-state activity and sentenced to a long term of imprisonment with hard labor. He was confined under harsh conditions, including at the prison in Zenica, which permanently damaged his health. Church tradition remembers him as remaining steadfast and unwilling to recant or to accept the degree of collaboration the regime demanded of clergy. He was released before serving the full sentence but remained restricted in movement and was not restored to free episcopal ministry.

He died on 12 November 1964 at the age of fifty. After the end of communist rule the Serbian Orthodox Church examined the witness of clergy who had suffered under the Yugoslav regime. In 2005 the Holy Assembly of Bishops glorified him as a confessor. He is commemorated on 12 November. He is remembered as a link between the Serbian diaspora in North America and the church in the homeland, and as an example of episcopal fidelity under twentieth-century persecution. Some secondary details of his last years, including the precise locality of death and burial, are reported with variation; the main outline of his American birth, education in Belgrade, monastic and episcopal vocation, imprisonment, and later recognition as a confessor is well established.