When Nazi Germany occupied Yugoslavia in World War II, Velimirović was imprisoned and eventually taken to Dachau concentration camp.

After being released by Germans in December 1944, Velimirović spent time in Slovenia, where he blessed anti-communist volunteers such as Dimitrije Ljotić and other Nazi collaborators.

He was born as Nikola Velimirović in the small village of Lelić, Valjevo in the Principality of Serbia,[6] on the day of the feast of Saint Naum of Ohrid, whose monastery would later be his episcopal see.

He was admitted to the Seminary of Saint Sava in Belgrade, where, apart from the standard subjects, he explored a significant number of writings of both Eastern and Western authors, such as Shakespeare, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Marx, Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and others.

[7] Nikola had been chosen to become a professor in the Seminary of Saint Sava, but it was decided that he needed to pursue further Eastern Orthodox studies before becoming a teacher.

In 1910 he was entrusted with a mission to Great Britain in order to gain the co-operation of the Church of England in educating the young students who had been evacuated when the Austrian, German and Bulgarian forces threatened to overwhelm the country.

In 1915, as an unknown Serbian monk, he toured most of the major U.S. cities, where he held numerous lectures, fighting for the union of the Serbs and South Slavic peoples.

He states that according to official data "the Bulgarian authorities have massacred no fewer than 148 priests in Eastern Serbia during the period of their occupation in winter 1914".

During World War II, in 1941, as soon as the German forces occupied Yugoslavia, Bishop Nikolaj was arrested by the Nazis in the Monastery of Žiča after the suspicion of contributing to the resistance.

In December 1944 as part of a settlement of Neubacher with Milan Nedić and Dimitrije Ljotić Germans were release Velimirović and Dožić who were transferred from Dachau to Slovenia, as the Nazis attempted to make use of Patriarch Gavrilo's and Nikolaj's authority among the Serbs in order to gain allies in the anti-Communist movements.

[18] During his stay in Slovenia, Velimirović blessed volunteers of Dimitrije Ljotić and other collaborators and war criminals such as Dobroslav Jevđević and Momčilo Đujić.

[19] In the final years of World War II in the book "Reči srpskom narodu kroz tamnički prozor" he says they the Jews condemned and killed Christ "suffocated by the stinking spirit of Satan", and further he writes that "Jews proved to be worse opponents of God than the pagan Pilate", "Devil teaches them so, their father", "the Devil taught them how to rebel against the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

[7] After the war he never returned to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but after spending some time in Europe, he finally immigrated as a refugee to the United States in 1946.

[citation needed] Velimirović died on 18 March 1956, while in prayer at the foot of his bed before the Liturgy, at St Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Canaan Township, Wayne County, Pennsylvania, where a shrine is established in his room.

After the fall of communism, his remains were ultimately re-buried in his home town of Lelić on 12 May 1991, next to his parents and his nephew, Bishop Jovan Velimirović.

[1][2][9] Amfilohije Radović points out that part of his success lies in his high education and ability to write well and his understanding of European culture.

Literary critic Milan Bogdanović claims that everything Velimirović wrote after his Ohrid years did nothing more than paraphrase Eastern Orthodox canon and dogma.

While the Europeans themselves were estranged from their subjects, blacks and yellow-skinned people, not wanting to eat or drink with them or stay under the same tents, until then our soldiers made friends with them, ate and drank, visited them when they were sick, helped them when they were in trouble, at their celebrations congratulated and feasted, talking to them with fingers and hands.

Velimirović wrote a book called "The land of the dead" in which he expressed support for the Chetnik fight against National Socialist Germany.

[36][37][38] Notably, the first written record of Velimirović's antisemitic beliefs comes over a decade before the start of World War II.

In fact, the first chronicled case of Velimirović expressing antisemitic beliefs dates back to a 1927 sermon delivered in the United States.

A contemporary defender of Velimirović's reputation and saint status, Obradović defends the antisemitic writings of Velimimirović by stating that Velimirović's words only echo what had been written in early Christian texts:[40] You have the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ when he says to the Pharisees that they are a "brood of vipers" or that their father is the Devil; Bishop Nikolaj merely quotes the Gospels.

[40]In a speech delivered in 1936 at the Žica Monastery, Velimirović spoke out against what he perceived to be a Jewish threat to Christianity in front of a distinguished audience that included Yugoslavian Prime Minister Milan Stojadinović.

Velimirović used specific lines of this speech to accuse Jews of leading a secretive, coordinated effort against Christianity and "faith in real God".

[41] Velimirović's writing in Words to the Serbian People Through the Prison Window is generally seen as the strongest evidence of the Bishop holding antisemitic beliefs.

The Devil taught them through the centuries how to fight against the sons of Christ, against the children of light, against the followers of the Gospel and eternal life [Christians].

[43]Additionally, Byford identifies the antisemitic ideology of Velimirović in the work, Indian Letters in which the figure of a Jewish woman portrays Satan.

[44] Historians inclined to side with the view that Velimirović's writings prove that he held antisemitic beliefs note that this one incidence of the Bishop saving a Jewish family is commonly exaggerated by pro-Velimirović groups as evidence of his universal kindness and selflessness against the several confirmed antisemitic writings tied to Velimirović.

Nikolaj criticized the secularization of Germany, called the ideology of fascism the “European evil,” and referred to Hitler as the “Viennese painter” and “Satanic evil.”[50] In spite of accusations of collaboration leveled during Communist times, some of Velimirović's actions and writings were directed against the Germans who got suspicious of him when he supported the coup in April 1941.

Contrary to the reports that Velimirović was liberated when the Americans' 36th Division reached Dachau, both he and Patriarch Dožić were actually released in November 1944, having spent three months in the camp.