His father Aleksandar was born in Pécsvárad, a town in Baranya County, but he moved his trade business to Baja where he had his small store.

He immediately undertook several important measures to reform the economy and administration of numerous monasteries in the Karlovci Metropolitanate as well as to improve the educational level of monks by opening monastic schools.

In the early twentieth century, Patriarch Lukijan was viewed by Hungarian and Austrian authorities as more of a political than a religious figure.

Serbs and other Orthodox Slavs constituted the largest demographic group within Bosnia and Herzegovina (they were under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitanate of Dabar-Bosnia independent by the Patriarch of Karlovci) and the portion of the former Militärgrenze (Military Frontier) that ran from Dalmatian hinterland through Croatia, Slavonia and Vojvodina.

The killers of the patriarch were never found or brought to justice because World War I soon broke out and four years later the Habsburg Empire dissolved.