About the Priest
Biography of Father DUŠAN
Priest Dusan Erdelj was born in a working-class, devout family, on April 13, 1982.
He was born in Vojvodina (Bačka), in Bečej, a small town on the Tisa River. His mother is Slavica and father Vladimir. In his earliest youth he spent a lot of time in the Church of the Saint Great Martyr Georgius in Bečej, where he learns the Christian Orthodox faith from his spiritual fathers, from Father Stojan Bilić (current Archpriest of Novi Sad) and from Father Siniša Panić (current Archpriest of Novi Sad). In addition to his skilled priests, Father Dušan was taught the faith and manners by his grandmother Ana and his late grandfather Dušan, with whom he lived until he was 15. During the period of his primary education at school “Sever Djurkić” in Bečej, the Bishop of Bačka Mr. Irinej (Bulović) arrives in Bečej for Church Slava (celebration) at the proposal of the parish authorities. Mr. Irinej blesses Father Dušan and declares him a lecturer.
After completing primary school, and through the blessing of the Bishop of Bačka Irinej, Dušan enrolled in the Seminary of Saint John Chrysostom in Kragujevac. The seminary of the same name was opened in 1997 on the initiative of the Blessed Bishop of Šumadija, Academician Dr. Sava (Vukovic). As a student of the first generation of theologians at this school, Dušan took part in the creation of a new modern theological education.
Those were difficult days in the village of Grošnica, until the new school building in the Aerodrom settlement near the center of the city of Kragujevac was completed. In those years, NATO aggression against our country began, so that the seminary students with their young professors survived those difficult and very scarce days in the capital of Šumadija.
In 2002, Father Dušan completed the fifth class of the seminary with great success, and after graduating he returned to his hometown of Bečej. In the same year, the Bishop of Bačka Irinej gave him a scholarship and sent him to study at the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade.
In 2004, Father Dušan moved to the Braničevo diocese with the blessing of Bishop Irinej and made himself available to Bishop Dr. Ignatius (Midić). By God’s providence, during the Liturgy of the Hierarch in December of the same year, Bishop Ignatius ordained Father Dušan as a deacon and sent him to Ćuprija, where he was in the brotherhood of the Church of St. George under the leadership of Archbishop Milija.
In the spring of 2005, Bishop Ignatius invited Father Dušan to inform him that he would be ordained as a priest, and after his ordination in May of the same year, he appointed him parish priest of Klenje-Makački (Braničevo diocese – Golubac area). The young elder quickly fits into the environment and, together with his faithful, quickly renews the parish liturgically. In less than two years the parish received two renovated churches with frescoes and a newly built beautiful parish house. The church community took on an ecclesiastical character and with the help of the children, to whom Father Dušan gave religious instruction, it became full on Sundays and holidays, which encouraged the faithful to continue to help and participate in the life of the church.
In 2008, Father Dušan graduated from the Orthodox Theological Institute, and in the same year he completed the renovation of the Makački Temple with his faithful, where students from the Institute of Conversation, Fresco and Icon Writing worked with Professor Goran Janićijević from Belgrade. On June 8, 2008, Bishop Ignatije of Braničevo came to serve the Hierarch’s Liturgy, where he consecrated the renovated church and decorated Father Dušan with the rank of proto-delegate.
Bishop Luka (Kovačević), Bishop of the City of Paris and all Western Europe, blessed the arrival of Proto-Delegate Dušan Erdelj in his diocese, and on November 1, 2008, Father Dušan began serving in the parishes of Nijmegen, Amsterdam and Utrecht. In 2010, Father Dušan founded the new parish of Saint Nectarios of Aegina in Breda, and in the same year he became archpriest by decision of Bishop Luka. In 2016, Archpriest Dušan said goodbye to the parish in Amsterdam and in the same year, with the blessing of Bishop Luka, he founded two new communities in Liège (Belgium) and Eindhoven (Netherlands).
