Hieromartyr
Hieromartyr Joannicius (Lipovac), Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral
1890 — 1945
Also known as: Иоанникий Черногорский, Јоаникије Липовац, Joanikije Lipovac, Иоанн Липовац
Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral of the Serbian Orthodox Church during the Second World War, who interceded for refugees and prisoners and condemned communist terror; arrested and killed in 1945, he is venerated by the Serbian Church as a hieromartyr.
Jovan Lipovac was born on 16 February 1890 on the Bay of Kotor, studied in Kotor, Zadar and Belgrade, was ordained priest in 1912 and taught in Cetinje and Belgrade. A widower, he was elected auxiliary bishop of Budimlja in December 1939, tonsured with the name Joannicius and consecrated in February 1940, and in December 1940 became Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral in Cetinje.
During the Italian occupation he sheltered refugees and wrote hundreds of petitions to the occupation authorities on behalf of hostages and prisoners; in his Easter message of 1942 he publicly condemned communist violence. The new communist authorities regarded him as a collaborator of the occupiers and the Chetniks. In November 1944 he left Cetinje with many of his clergy; in May 1945 the column was stopped in Slovenia by the Yugoslav Army, and in June 1945 he was killed at Aranđelovac. The Serbian Orthodox Church glorified him as a hieromartyr, with a solemn glorification in Belgrade on 22 May 2002. He is commemorated on 4/17 June.