Page 43 - Western Diocese Annual 2023

Father Velimir Petakovich was born in Sumadi- ja area of Serbia in 1933 to the family of the Protopresbyter-stavrophor Radisav Petakov-
ich, a Serbian Orthodox priest. Raised in and about the church, his religious education began early, in his father’s house.
Father Petakovich’s childhood spanned the soul trying time of World War II when Yugoslavia was occupied by Nazi Germany and ravaged by civil war and revolution. During those difficult times, every sort of misfortune, human failing, and blindness confronted his father. The suffering was great, with hunger, bombardment, and death all around.
Suffering continued after the war, too, when the Bolsheviks took over the government and instigated more killing and looting and imposed Marxist ide- ology upon the country. Nevertheless, the Serbian Orthodox Church found strength enough to re-es- tablish the seminary in Prizren, Kosovo, in 1947, and Father Petakovich became a student in the first gen- eration of seminarians after the war. He graduated in 1951 and continued his education at the Universi- ty of Belgrade, School of Divinity, successfully ob- taining his master’s degree in 1956.
In 1958 he left Yugoslavia and spent two years in West Germany where he worked for the British Army as an assistant to the Serbian Orthodox Chap- lain and then in the Royal Air Force (RAF) hospital. While in West Germany, he married Ljubinka Vu- kovic, whom he had met in Belgrade at the Univer- sity where she studied Philosophy and Foreign Lan- guages. They immigrated to the United States in 1960.
Father Petakovich’s first church assignment in the United States was in Gary, Indiana, as a teacher in the church school. He was ordained a priest the same year at the Serbian Orthodox monastery of Saint Sava in Libertyville, Illinois, and became the parish priest in Gary, where he faithfully served. In 1961 God blessed him and Protinica Ljubinka with their first-born son, Deyan. In 1964, the young fam- ily came to San Diego to serve at the Saint George Church. God granted them two more children, Si- mona born in 1965 and Alexander born in 1969.
In 1966, with the pious, unselfish parishioners of St. George Church, Father Petakovich lead the con- gregation in acquiring the magnificent property overlooking Mission Bay and the ambitious build- ing plan that included the completion of the church social hall and Sunday school classroom that served
as the temporary sanctuary in 1967, followed by the parish house in 1968, and then the completion of the church in 1969.
With great concern that traditional frescos paint- ings would not endure the damaging affects of the sea salt air environment from nearby Mission Bay, it was Father Petakovich’s vision to adorn the interior of the church and exterior domes with permanent mosaic artwork in the Byzantine style of the old world churches and so he engaged Giovanni Nas- trucci, a principal in the Mexico City firm of Mosai- cos Italianos along with Publio Cavallini, mosaic artisan tile setter assisted by his son Amilcare from Texas. All the frescos were initially created full scale on craft paper by academic painter, Stevan Cukich from Belgrade and San Diego artist, Mr. Donald Donnelly. With blessings of His Holiness Patriarch German, the official Patriarchate iconographer, Deacon Marko Ilich from Belgrade painted tradi- tional smaller scale icons on wood. Father Petakov-
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