Draft:Josip Cvijic

Josip Cvijic (1880-1958) was a Serbian Orthodox Metropolitan of Skoplje in Macedonia (now North Macedonia)who served as acting head of the Serbian Orthodox Church when Tito usurped the Yugoslav government-in-exile, then in London, and assumed total power at the end of 1945. Metropolitan Josip was an outspoken foe of the dictatorship that lasted far too long. Cvijic received his higher education in universities and theological academies in Serbia and Imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th-century. In 1931, Metropolitan Josip Cvijic was accompanied by Justin Popovich on a Serbian mission to Subcarpathian Rus, one of the poorest regions of Czechoslovakia. There together they worked with great success among Uniates bringing them back to Eastern Orthodoxy.He was also one of the first clerics to condemn the secret negotiations on a Concordat between the Holy See and the Kingdom Kingdom led by Pope Pius XII and Slovene-born Ljudevit Auer, the Yugoslav Minister of Justice. Even though the Concordat was signed by them, it was never ratified because the Serbian nation rose up against it in 1936. Among the most vociferous church leaders, were Cvijic, Popovich, Nikolaj Velimirović, Gavrilo Dozić, Mihailo Petrović, Patriarch Varnava Rosić, and many others.

Metropolitan Josip Cvijic died in Belgrade on 3 July 1958.