Saint Mardarije of Lješanska, Libertyville and All America passed away on this day in 1935. Ivan Uskoković was born in 1889 in Montenegro. Because he belonged to a prominent family, Ivan received both an elementary and secondary education (the latter in Belgrade). In 1905, Ivan was tonsured a monk at Studenica Monastery and ordained a hierodeacon there. Imperial Russia at this time was the country with the leading Orthodox theological education in the world. No wonder that the young hierodeacon went there to get a seminary education. At the age of 17, he studied at the Theological Seminary in Zhytomyr. From there, he went to Chișinău Theological Seminary. After graduating in 1912, he went to study at St. Petersburg Academy. During World War I, Fr. Mardarije would visit Slavic subjects of Habsburg Crown in internment camps in Russia for preaching Pan-Slavist ideas to the prisoners of war of Slavic origin. Through two Montenegrin princesses, he became familiar with the high society of the imperial capital including, Gregory Rasputin, who did not approve of this Serbian priestmonk. In 1917, Fr. Mardarije came to the USA under assignment from Provisional Government to organize a Serbian Mission there. The All-American Sobor in Cleveland, OH in 1919 elected Mardarije as a candidate for the episcopacy. However, he wanted to obtain permission from his own church, and returned to Serbia. There, he was appointed a rector of the monastery in Rakovice, where he remained for three years. The monastery became a home for the first monastic school in Serbia. In 1923, he returned to America to serve as an administrator of the Diocese of America and Canada. His episcopal consecration took place in 1926 in the Belgrade Cathedral. In America, he built St. Sava Monastery in Libertyville, IL. In 1935, he suddenly died in a hospital in Ann Arbor, MI. Source: Priestmonk Ignatii (Shestakov), “Mardarii,” Pravoslavnaia Enstiklopedia. | 
