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is
the kingdom of the father and of the son
and of the holy spirit
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hi everybody uh today we are going
to uh chellie on this episode of neither
here nor in jerusalem
um celia is the monastery of saint
houston popovich he went there in the
40s in a sort of
sort of exile by the communists and he
he died there and he was the
spiritual son of another great
theologian
nicola velimirovic just to give you an
idea
before he died he said that he wants to
be buried at celia
because when the second coming comes and
he's resurrected
he wants to be able to look at his
monastery one last time
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we set out on foot for chellier on
november 1st from the city of vallejo
the hike will take us about an hour and
a half
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we took a well-known shortcut on the
railway many pilgrims use this route and
since we were in a little bit of a hurry
we used it too
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we finally could see celia the very side
of it
was serene celia comes from the greek
word
which is plural for monastic cells
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did you get that yes of course
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oh
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oh
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the monastery of celia has a long
history
no one knows the exact date of its
founding but it's estimated to have been
built between the 13th and 15th
centuries
its founder is also disputed some say it
was
king stefan dragutin a local legend says
that it was three brothers from the
nemanji royal dynasty
and yet others say it was built by the
despot stefan lazarevic
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the new church has three altars one to
send saba of serbia
one to saint justin the martyr and
another to saint mary of egypt
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saint justin was sent to celia in 1945
and spent 31 years there until his
repose in 1979.
during his time there he was constantly
under the surveillance of the communists
but that didn't stop him from writing
and creating powerful theological works
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oh
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the monastery is dedicated to the
archangels michael and gabriel
between the 18th and 20th centuries the
monastery was destroyed
and rebuilt many times the aggressors
being mainly the ottomans
but was also destroyed in world war 1
and world war ii
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oh
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we weren't certain if they would allow
us to take any footage
inside the old church where saint
justin's relics were
when we arrived a priest whom we knew
gave us some hope
he said he would ask for us
it seems we had st justin's blessing and
we therefore
managed to capture just a few pictures
of his reliquary
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next to the church where his relics are
is the tomb from where he wanted to rise
when the lord comes again in glory this
tomb was dug illegally
the communists weren't allowing any
excavations to be done
due to the historic nature of the
monastery
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okay so uh we're gonna go get some
coffee
and uh what a blessing it has been
to uh visit celia it's an amazing
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pilgrimage
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and now i will leave you with a quote by
saint justin
thank you all for watching this episode
of neither here nor in jerusalem
i'll see you in the next one in truth
there is only one freedom the holy
freedom of christ
whereby he freed us from sin from evil
from the devil it binds us to god all
other freedoms are illusory
that is to say they are all in fact
slavery