Hierarch
Saint (Hierarch) Basil of Ostrog
1610 — 1671
Also known as: Василий Острожский, чудотворец, Василий Захолмский, Стоян Йованович, Василиjе Острошки
Metropolitan of Herzegovina who defended Orthodoxy against the Unia and ended his days at the Ostrog monastery in Montenegro, where his incorrupt relics rest.
St Basil of Ostrog (Stojan Jovanović) was born on 28 December 1610 in Mrkonjići in Popovo Polje, Herzegovina, to a poor family. He became a monk at the Tvrdoš monastery, was ordained hieromonk and later archimandrite. He opposed attempts to introduce the Unia and, persecuted by the Ottoman authorities, withdrew for a time to the Hilandar monastery on Mount Athos.
From 1651 he is attested as Metropolitan of Zahumlje; Patriarch Gabriel I of Peć also entrusted him with Nikšić and neighbouring districts, so that he governed the whole of Herzegovina. During Ottoman persecutions he moved his see from Tvrdoš to Onogošt (Nikšić), rebuilt and built churches, sometimes carrying stones himself, and refused the Pope's appeals for union.
Seeking solitude, he settled in the mountain monastery of Ostrog, where he spent his last years in a cave cell, and died there on 29 April 1671. In 1678 his relics were found incorrupt; they rest today in the cave church of Ostrog, one of the chief shrines of Montenegro, visited by Orthodox, Muslims and Catholics alike. He is among the most venerated saints of the Serbian Church and is commemorated on 29 April (12 May new style).