Saint Varnava of Hvosno Resource Page

St. Varnava of Hvosno (Feast Day - November 12)

 

Holy New Confessor Varnava (Nastic), Bishop of Hvosno (+ 1964) 

 

Serbian Church to Honor Gary-born St. Varnava 

 

Saint Varnava Nastic's Homily on the Episcopal Office (Spoken at his Ordination as Bishop of Khvostansky)

On the Dangerous Vice of Pride (St. Varnava Nastic) 

 

Is God Out of Date? (A Homily by St. Varnava Nastic) 

 

A Letter About Music (St. Varnava Nastic)

 

Saint Varnava Nastic's Homily on the Episcopal Office (Spoken at his Ordination as Bishop of Khvostansky)

 

By Saint Varnava Nastic, Bishop of Khvostansky

(Delivered on August 19, 1947)

Dear brothers and sisters!

The height of honor, according to Christ's measure, is given to people in accordance with the height of their readiness for sacrifice. Those who give little will receive little honor. The one who sacrifices much will receive much honor. Those who accept the greatest honor among men make the greatest sacrifice through this. For Christ, according to His own words, first had to go through Golgotha in order to enter later into His glory. And how can people avoid this criterion when the immortal God Himself obeyed it? Those who flee from sacrifice are also fleeing from the only honor under this sun that is of God, for which it is useful to fight. When our Lord Jesus Christ sent His apostles into the world, He established sacrifice as a program and a way of their life. And only by their readiness for the apostolic sacrifice did the Galilean fishermen receive the apostolic honor. This is the standard set at the foundation of Christ's Church, has invariably remained the main one at all times of its history, and will remain so until the end of the age. High honor in Christ's Church means high sacrifice.

On the Dangerous Vice of Pride (St. Varnava Nastic)

 

 

“In this article, one can sense ... the humble spirit and modesty that adorned the ancient spiritual giants of old Egypt, Sinai and the Holy Mountain. As if the author were outside of time and space. Not a single temptation of the twentieth century touched him and failed to separate him from the holy people of the early Christian centuries,"- this is how St. Nikolai Velimirovich reacted to the article "Something About Pride", written by the then student of the Theological Faculty in Belgrade, Vojislav Nastic, who today the Serbian Orthodox Church honors as Saint Varnava, Bishop of Khvostansky, commemorated on the 12th of November. Below is a translation of the article on Pride he wrote as a student of theology:

 

Is God Out of Date? (A Homily by St. Varnava Nastic)

By St. Varnava (Nastic), Bishop of Hvosno

Dear brothers and sisters!

Is God out of date? This is the question that I want to put before you today. The answer to it determines the answers to many other questions that concerns human souls. For if God is out of date, then faith in God is also out of date. Then the Church of God became obsolete as the stronghold of this faith.

Holy New Confessor Varnava (Nastic), Bishop of Hvosno (+ 1964)

St. Varnava of Hvosno (Feast Day - November 12)

Saint Varnava was born Vojislav Nastić in Gary, Indiana on January 31, 1914 into a family of Serbian immigrants. His father and mother were Atanasije and Zorka Nastić and the family attended the Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Church of Gary, Indiana which is now located in Merrillville, Indiana. This was the place where Varnava was baptized, served as altar boy, and was first recognized as a youthful prodigy in reciting Serbian folklore and old ballads.