Balkan Nations will form Union, Declares Priest
Father Sebastian Dabovich, Home from Battlefields, Hopeful of Future of Warring States
After more than a year’s absence from San Francisco, during which time he traveled through all parts of the Balkans as a volunteer nurse and chaplain, Father Sebastian Dabovich, head of the Serbian Orthodox churches in the United States, is spending a few days in the city with friends, but will leave shortly for New York.
Prior to 1906 Father Dabovich was connected with the Russian Catholic church in San Francisco.
“The outcome of the present fighting in the Balkans will be the formation of a confederacy including Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, and Montenego,” said Father Dabovich last night. “This confederacy will eventually become the United States of Europe. It will be the culmination of a century of hope, particularly on the part of the Serbs.
“The country was fast settling down when I left eight weeks ago. On the ashes are being builded new homes and cities and a greater nation will be the ultimate result.
“Nicholas Pasich, prime minister of Serbia, is a great man: in fact, a genius. It was his brain that conceived the Balkan confederacy, and all his efforts are centered on perpetuating the idea.
“The allied armies fought under great physical obstacles and lost very heavily. When I left Belgrade a new army was being drafted of the youths of the country ranging from 18 years upward.
“Conditions there now are very hopeful. Bulgaria is being punished, but I believed eventually will come into the confederacy and help to strengthen the union.”1
This is a digital edition of Beacon from the Bay: The Collected Works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich of Jackson and San Francisco, a several-month-long project to catalogue the out-of-print works of Saint Sebastian Dabovich, the first American-born Orthodox priest.
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Publisher’s Note: This article was originally published in The San Francisco Call, Tuesday, August 5, 1913, p. 6.