1886 - 1941
A Serbian priest martyred in 1941 during the wartime persecution; numbered among the new-martyrs.
The Holy Hieromartyr Branko Dobrosavljevic, Priest of Veljun
Branko Dobrosavljevic was a Serbian Orthodox priest of the parish of Veljun, in the region of Kordun, who was killed in 1941 during the persecution of Serbs in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in the early period of the Second World War. He is numbered among the new-martyrs and is commemorated on April 24. The Serbian Orthodox Church canonized him in 2000, and he is venerated as a hieromartyr.
According to the available accounts, he was born on January 4, 1886, in the village of Skrad, near Vojnic, in territory then under Austria-Hungary. He completed his secondary studies and the School of Theology at the Seminary in Sremski Karlovci in 1908. He married, and the following year he was ordained, becoming deacon on March 15 and priest on March 22, 1909. Over the course of his ministry he served in the villages of Buhaca, Radovica, and Veljun, the last of which was his parish at the time of his death.
By the accounts that survive, he was arrested on the feast of Saint George in 1941, which was also the day of his own patronal Slava. He was seized together with his son Nebojsa, a medical student, and with the priest Dimitrije Skorupan of Cvijanovic Brdo, along with a large number of other Serbs of the surrounding district. They were taken to a wooded place near Hrvatski Blagaj, where they were killed. The tradition relates that his son was put to death before his eyes and that the priest himself was tortured before being killed.
Dobrosavljevic spent his priesthood in the rural parishes of the Kordun region of central Croatia, an area with a substantial Serbian Orthodox population. He served successively at Buhaca, Radovica, and Veljun, and during his ministry he received the Order of Saint Sava and the Order of the Yugoslav Crown. He was the parish priest of Veljun when the persecution overtook him in the spring of 1941.
His death formed part of the wider killing of Serbs in the newly established Independent State of Croatia following the Axis dismemberment of Yugoslavia in April 1941. After his repose, his remains, together with those of others killed at the time, were transferred in 1946 to a grave at Veljun. He was glorified by the Serbian Orthodox Church in 2000 and entered among its saints as a hieromartyr; the Serbian church keeps his memory on May 7 of the civil calendar, corresponding to April 24 on the older reckoning.
The OCA Apr 24 list shows him under two phrasings ('Branko the New Martyr' and 'Branko, parish priest of Veljun/Veljusa'); recorded here as one person. Modern glorification; flagged for review.