Sarajevo – Belgrade (In Our Quiet Great Little City)

An old-school Sarajevan woman. Raised on the wellsprings of Christianity, in a clime where civilizations intersect. Jews, Muslims, and Catholics respected and valued her equally. The chanting of vigils at the Cathedral Church, as well as the educational spirit of the Sarajevo Seminary, echoed in her ears and heart, from personal experience and married life (her husband attended the Sarajevo Seminary with Patriarch Pavle and Metropolitan Vladislav). Neither the Monte Carlo Philharmonic nor the Sydney Opera could convey the events and beauty of that irreversible era through performance. Such is "our quiet great little city." This is not only a characteristic of Sarajevans, but also the fact that wherever they went, they recognized and loved each other. A respected Sarajevo doctor never forgot how his mother and he, though of a different faith, remained connected to the church and to Šibenik. There, he tucked away in his memory the image of a young clergyman sitting in the churchyard, scribbling. The honorable Nail, whenever he saw him, would greet him with: "God help you, Father!" However, not everything can be described. It is best experienced or only read in the philosophy of language. On the feast of St. Basil the Great, a pious old woman came to congratulate me on the holidays and my past birthday. It was a kind of feast within a feast. The sight of her appearance evokes the Greek word that best describes her: τᾰπεινοφροσῠ́νη. This word is translated into Church Slavonic as "smirennomudrije," or what we read in Christ's words in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." During World War II, she fled to Belgrade. Pre-war high school and university students earned a living by helping in wealthier homes. This also applied during the war to suffering and displaced Serbian children until they found a home. She was of age. She found herself in a wealthy house on Kralja Petra Street, with Mrs. Olga Radović, a philanthropist and painter. Mrs. Olga went blind after the war. "She was not pious at first but had