He was the first Serb to head the Metropolitanate of Skopje after the abolition of the Peć Patriarchate:[1][2] Dimitrije Drazić was born and baptized in Šabac on 20 August 1852.
[6] While in Athens he was an unofficial delegate of liberal Jovan Ristić at conferences and lectures concerning Balkan state of affairs.
[12] When he was elected rector of the Belgrade's Seminary of Saint Sava, he founded a fund for poor theologians and introduced public lectures, a novelty at the time.
It was a difficult time for the Serbian Orthodox Church within the Ottoman Empire, because the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Bulgarian Exarchate had official permits from the Turkish authorities for uninterrupted work in Old Serbia, and the Serbian Church had to work illegally or within the dictates of the Constantinople Patriarchate.
The Bulgarian Exarchate tried to prevent the functioning of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the part of Old Serbia that mainly includes today's Macedonia.
The work of the Exarchate was first focused on taking over Serbian churches and expelling their priests, and then ordering parishioners to change their names to Bulgarian.
In that sense, on 12 August 1903, bishop Firmilijan complained to the consul of the Kingdom of Serbia in Skopje: "In the Turkish Empire, all nationalities are divided: 1.
Firmilijan was closely connected with the revolutionary leader Jovan Ćirković, and other members of the Saint Sava Society.