In the same street where Bora Stanković was born, another Serbian great was born: an Orthodox philosopher, doctor of theology, professor at the University of Belgrade, clergyman and archimandrite of the monastery Ćelija, Ava Justin Popović also known as Saint Justin from Ćelije…

Ava Justin was born in this house on April 6th, 1894 as Blagoje Popović.

On the site of the original house in 1994, the construction of the All-Orthodox Center “Venerable Justin of Vranje and Ćelia” began, which appearance you can see today.

In front of the chapel, we listened to the first part of the story about the life of Ave Justin (Serbian) and his uncompromising struggle for the purity of Orthodox Christianity.

The chapel itself (construction started in 2005) is small in area, but very nicely picturesque:

The house is divided into upper and lower parts. In the upper part is the study of Ave Justina and his personal belongings. Here we heard from our kind hosts the continuation of the story about the life and work of Ava Justin, about his crossing of Albania with the Serbian army, education in St. Petersburg and his rejected doctoral dissertation on Dostoevsky at Oxford, his doctorate in Athens and persecution under the Titoist regime. I definitely recommend you to read his biography on the previous link.

In the lower part of the house there is a gallery with numerous photographs from the life of Ava Justin Popović.

Of course, we must not miss the opportunity to remember from this place…

…but again we have to move on. There are more places to visit before the end of the day!

All photos taken with the Fujifilm X-T20 camera with the Canon EFs 18-135mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM nano lens adapted to the Fuji body using Fringer adapter.