Hiero-Confessor Nikodim Bishop of Dalmatia passed away on this day in 1915. St. Nikodim is a local saint of the Serbian Orthodox Church. His life captures dynamics of interaction between the Serbian Orthodox in the Kingdom of Serbia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nikola Milash was born in 1845 in modern day Croatia. His father was Serbian and his mother Italian, who converted to the Orthodox faith. His uncle was Greek. Therefore, from his young years St. Nikodem was exposed to an inter-linguistic and multi-cultural milieu. His primary education was at the school ran by Franciscans and then in a private school operated by the Dominicans. In both schools he studied in Italian and then took the final at the Jesuit school. Then Nikola moved to the Serbian part of the empire and entered a theological seminary in Sremski Karlovci. In 1866, Nikola began education in the philosophy department of the university in Vienna. There the priest of the Russian Embassy church, Fr. Michael Raevsky, arranged his education at Kiev theological academy. He selected canon law as his specialization. Having returned in 1871 to Dalmatia Nikola became a professor, and later a rector, of the seminary in Zadar. In 1873, he became a monk and a priest in 1875. In 1885, Fr. Nikodim arrived in Serbia to reform Belgrade seminary. However, as an outsider he did not find common language with representatives of church circles there. In 1877, Fr. Nikodim returned back to Zadar. In 1890, Austrian Emperor Franz-Joseph confirmed Fr. Nikodim to be Bishop of Dalamatia. Earlier Austrians cut the diocese of Dalmatia out of the Metropolia of Sremski Karlovci. Fr. Nikodim did not approve of the foundation of this Romanian-Serbian metropolia. As a bishop St. Nikodim did a lot for preservation of Serbian self-identity in Dalmatia. In 1910, Bishop Dosifiej (Iovich) commited suicide as a result of embezzlement, which took place in 1908 while he was an archimandrite and treasurer in Bishop Nikodim’s diocese. As a result Bishop Nikodim retired and focued on his academic work. After the beginning of World War One in the Fall of 1914, Bishop Nikodim was arrested under suspicion of connection with Russia and Serbia. He was released in March 1915 and died soon after. Alongside the Romanian Saint Metropolitan Andrei Șaguna and the Austrian linguist Joseph von Zhishman (1820-1894), Bishop Nikodim contributed a lot to studies of Byzantine canon law under the Habsburg monarchy. Unfortunately, St. Nikodim’s works in canon law have not been translated into English. He is the author of the textbook on canon law and also produced his commentaries on all the canons of the Orthodox Church, which contain an impressive combination of academic analysis and pastoral care. Source: Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin, “Nikodim,” Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopedia. | 
