BOŽIĆ: Before and After
- Special Correspodent
- 2 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
When Christmas Came With Police Escorts
The Christmas That Was
There was a time when Christmas at St. Sava Cathedral meant something.
Not the carefully staged photo opportunities. Not the calculated public relations. Not the police coordination with liturgy schedules.
Christmas meant families.
Fathers carrying their children on their shoulders through December snow, heading toward the warmth and light spilling from the cathedral doors. Young voices singing Serbian Christmas hymns they'd practiced for weeks.
The smell of incense mixed with the cold air as you entered. Fr. Dragoslav's voice—steady, genuine, pastoral—leading the faithful through ancient prayers their grandparents had heard in cities and villages across Serbia before war drove them here.
Mir Boziji, Hristos se rodi!
The response would echo through the cathedral, dozens of voices, hundreds of voices: Vaistinu se rodi!
After services, the fellowship hall would fill. Coffee. Baklava. Stories in Serbian and English, sometimes switching mid-sentence because that's how diaspora families talk. Children running between tables while their parents caught up with friends they'd known for decades.
This was Christmas Eve at St. Sava Cathedral—never ended before midnight, often lasting until the early hours of the morning.
Not perfect. Never perfect. But authentic. Warm. Home.
The Priests: A Study in Contrasts
Fr. Dragoslav served St. Sava Cathedral with pastoral care that didn't require police enforcement.
When parishioners questioned irregularities, he listened patiently and with wisdom. When families struggled, he counseled them privately, pastorally, with the confidentiality that Orthodox tradition requires. His door was always open. His phone always answered. His presence at hospital bedsides, at family crises, at moments of joy and sorrow—this was ministry as it should be.
His Christmas services were celebrations of faith, not performances. No calculated staging. No photo opportunities for donors. Just the ancient services, faithfully celebrated, for the people who came to worship. The fellowship hall would overflow after Christmas Eve service—with families sharing food, laughter, and the warmth of genuine community.
Then came October 29, 2025. Fr. Dragoslav was removed. No proper notice. No explanation beyond vague accusations that have never been substantiated. Only retaliation against parishioners who dared to question
In his place: Fr. Dragan Vukovic.
And now, this same priest stands on Facebook complaining about hate and lies while refusing to engage in open discussion about his actions, the same priest who accused the faithful on day one, before even entering the cathedral: thieves! You stole prosphora a wine, while walking with actual thieves
Screenshot speaks volumes.
Fr. Dragan refuses open discussion: Whatever you say they will twist
Fr. Dragan Vukovic posts: They just spreading hate and lies!
Specifically about the blog. The blog that has systematically documented:
Police coordination with liturgy schedules
Security cameras destroyed in November 2025
Sacred items thrown in dumpsters (icons, crosses, prayer ropes)
The Antimension stolen from the altar
Trespass notices issued to grandmothers and mothers
One hundred twenty families locked out of their own church
Dan August responds to Fr. Dragan's complaint: I would invite anyone from that group to comment civilly here where there is no censoring of information, but I doubt that will happen.
Fr. Dragan's reply is revealing:
Believe me brother, whatever you say they will twist against you...
Translation: I cannot defend my actions because the documented evidence will destroy me.
Think about what he's actually saying:
Not, they're lying, here are the facts
Not, let me set the record straight
Not I'll gladly discuss this openly
Just: Whatever you say, they will twist.
This is the language of someone who knows the truth is against him. Someone who cannot refute video evidence, cannot explain destroyed cameras, cannot justify police-escorted invitations to liturgy.
So he claims victimhood instead.
He calls documentation hate. He calls evidence lies. He refuses open discussion while complaining that others won't engage.
This is not pastoral leadership. This is damage control.
Where Are All the Children?
The photographs tell a story that Fr. Dragan's Facebook complaints cannot refute.
BEFORE - With Fr. Dragoslav:
Look at the images. Dozens and dozens of children gathered in the cathedral. Children surrounding Fr. Dragoslav at the altar, reaching up to kiss the cross. Young altar servers in their red stihars. Children in traditional Serbian costumes at Saint Sava Slava, Detinjci, Materice (Mother's Day) and Ocevi (Father's Day) celebrations.
The fellowship hall packed with families. Three generations together. This is what a living parish looks like.
AFTER - With Fr. Dragan:
Eight children. Total.
And two of those eight aren't even from St. Sava Cathedral.
Let that settle for a moment.
For Materice and Ocevi celebrations in 2025, the new administration had to bus in children from Canton, Ohio—from St. George Serbian Orthodox Church—to create the illusion of a functioning parish.
They needed children for the photo opportunity. For the staged pictures to send to the Diocese: everything is fine, families are here, the parish is thriving.
So they "imported" them.
Two children from another parish, sixty miles away, brought in specifically for the photo shoot.
Compare the photographs:
Christmas 2025 with Fr. Dragoslav: Sanctuary overflowing with children, parents, grandparents
Christmas 2026 with Fr. Dragan: Eight kids (two borrowed), desperate staging, empty fellowship hall
This is what happens when you lock out 120 families.
This is what happens when you tell grandmothers they'll be arrested if they enter their own church. When you give mothers trespass notices. When you destroy the trust that made parents bring their children to Sunday School for decades.
The children are gone. Not because they chose to leave. Because their families were driven out.
And now the new administration has to rent children from other parishes for their propaganda photos.
Fr. Dragan complains about hate and lies.
But he cannot explain where all the children went.
Mir Boziji, Hristos se rodi!
To the one hundred twenty families standing in witness outside the building their grandparents built:
You are standing in the right place.
Not inside the building—though it is yours by every right except the legal manipulation that stole it.
You are standing where the faithful have always stood when institutions betray their purpose: outside the corrupt structure, bearing witness to truth, waiting for justice.
The Prophet Elijah stood outside King Ahab's court. The Prophet Jeremiah stood outside the Temple when its priests became corrupt. Christ himself stood outside the religious establishment that claimed to represent God.
Standing outside is not defeat. Standing outside is prophecy.
Why We Will Not Enter
People ask: Why don't you just go inside? The doors are open. The liturgy is being celebrated.
Here is why:
On the very first day Fr. Dragan Vukovic met the faithful of St. Sava Cathedral, before he even entered the church building, he accused them: THIEVES!
He claimed they stole prosphora and wine. These faithful parishioners—grandmothers who baked prosphora for forty years, men who donated tens of thousands of dollars to build and maintain this cathedral—were called thieves to their faces by a priest who had just arrived, who knew nothing about them, who walked in with the actual thieves who destroyed cameras and discarded sacred items in dumpsters.
How can we trust a priest who accuses the faithful before meeting them?
We will not worship in a church that removed Fr. Dragoslav without cause, without giving him the dignity of a proper dismissal or the congregation the courtesy of an explanation.
Fr. Dragoslav served this parish faithfully. He was at bedsides when parishioners were dying. He counseled families in crisis. He baptized children, married couples, buried the dead. He listened when people questioned financial irregularities. He stood for transparency and accountability.
And for that faithfulness, he was removed overnight. Without honor. Without respect. Without even the basic decency of an explanation to the people who trusted him for years.
We will not enter that building until Fr. Dragoslav is restored, and justice is done.
Not because we are stubborn. Not because we want to cause division. But because entering that building under the current regime would be to accept that what was done to Fr. Dragoslav was acceptable. That calling the faithful thieves is acceptable. That destroying cameras, discarding icons, locking out 120 families is acceptable.
It is not acceptable, and we will not pretend that it is.
This Christmas, you celebrated outside the building. But you celebrate inside the Church—the real Church—the Body of Christ that no bishop can lock out, no police can disperse, no trespass notice can silence.
The Bishop doesn't want you there?
Fine.
God knows where you are.
And that's enough.
Srecan Bozic to all the faithful standing in witness.
Vaistinu se rodi!
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