Thaddeus Strbulovich

Elder Thaddeus (Strbulovic) (1914-2003) is one of the greatest Serbian ascetics of the 20th century.
He was a spiritual guide of the Serbian people. His life was the life of a modern martyr in one of the most difficult periods of Serbian history, a time of spiritual and historical cataclysm: Two world wars, a civil war, a fifty-year communist occupation, the wars in Krajina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the attack by NATO forces against the Serbian people in 1999, the occupation of Kosovo and Metohija, and the continued globalization of societies around the world. In these dark hours, which lasted an entire century of war and suffering, the elder Thaddeus sought peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, and became their witness, demonstrating through his own personal example the victory that comes from choosing the narrow path of Kingdom of Heaven.
During his life, Fr. Thaddeus was credited with the Grace of the Holy Spirit and the three stages of mystical consummation (purification, illumination, deification). And this was known to all those who knew him, talked with him, confessed to him and partook of the Holy Eucharist from his hands.
We also know, from what he himself narrated humbly and always in the third person, that the old man was also entitled to that ultimate secret level of theology, where the divine man communicates with the angelic powers and is entitled to the sight of the uncreated light. The Holy Spirit reveals to him the depths of divinity and qualifies him to receive the uncreated energy of God. In front of such a person, many mysteries of the Gospel of God are revealed, which remain hidden from others."