Philanthropist

Master of Nature

The Sons of the Kingdom

Healer of the sick

The Resurrection of the Dead

Sons of Darkness

Prayer

Mysterious Book

Prophet

Liturgy

Winner

Instead of a preface

St. Nicholas painted the work "Theodoulos" in the winter of 1941-1942 in the monastery of Lyubostynya. Vladyka said that the work was not completed and that he needed to write a few more chapters, but later he did not manage to return to this work. Nevertheless, the incompleteness of "Theodoulos" is not felt, since each chapter in it is devoted to a separate theme and is finished.

The Germans, having occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, from the very first days began to search and dig up the Žiča monastery, demonstrating complete distrust of its abbot, Bishop Nicholas. Very often they visited Žiča and interrogated Vladyka for hours, until at last they openly told him that they would not tolerate him, such an active bishop, and that he should leave and hand over diocesan affairs to someone else. By decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops, Bishop Vikenty of Zletovo-Strumica was appointed to replace the saint; Bishop Nicholas was transferred to the monastery of Lyubostynya and imprisoned there. It happened on St. Peter's Day in 1941.

Vladyka spent a year and a half in Lyubostyn; Here he worked a lot - he wrote. Not bound by any diocesan affairs, he devoted all his time to creativity. And he wrote a lot. I believe that the Lyubostyn period will rightly be singled out by researchers as a separate and very important period in the life and work of Bishop Nicholas. In December 1942, Vladyka was transferred to the Vojlovica Monastery in Banat.

"Theodoulos" is one of the first and most significant works of the bishop created in the monastery of Lyubostynya. Vladyka, in his own words, wanted to show by this work how much higher and deeper the world of Gospel ideas is even the most refined and deepest, in his opinion, system of pre-Gospel thinking, the Indian system, and even more so surpasses the intellectual achievements of other peoples. Therefore, after expounding in several chapters in the Introduction to Theodoulos the "wisdom of India," he concludes: "Give me, Theodoulos, a nutshell, and we will pour into it all the human wisdom of India accumulated over thousands of years: all the Vedas, all Buddhism, all the tantras and mantras, and the whole Mahabharata, and the mysterious word 'aum'. In one nutshell are placed the four basic, main ideas of Indian wisdom." In other words, Bishop Nicholas's "Theodoulos" is a view of the story of Christ through the prism of Indian philosophical and religious thought. Vladyka's later work "The One Lover of Man" is, like "Theodoulos", also a story about Christ, but this time seen from Europe - through the prism of European philosophical and religious thought.

Editor of the Serbian edition

Introduction

Dust

Sit down, Theodoulos. Let's sit down with you, take a break from the dust. You ask what we should sit on? Let's sit right here, on the road, on the dust! Let us sit on what has been sitting on us for a long time, on the dust dear to us, which has tired us. Let's sit down with ourselves.

Do not frown, Theodoulos. What, don't you like this road dust? But look: after all, your body was created from this very dust - the most precious dust in the world for you. From this very dust are created all bodies, all eyes, all hands, all heads, all hearts; all the stars are made of it.