Rev. Ilija since birth did not move far from his current seat either. He was born on October 1^st, 1954 in the village of Dobrići, in the neighbouring parish of Grabovica. He received his primary education in Grabovica and Prisoje, and as he sympathetically points out - he repeated one class - 3^rd grade.

Stepinac's priest

He then remembered June 1970 when, as an eighth-grader, he went to Rome on the occasion of the canonization of Nikola Tavelić. "We parishioners from Grabovica were led by the parish priest, rev. Petar Vuletić Šjor, to whom I told that I wanted to become a priest, just like before that to rev. Andrija Iličić and rev. Milivoj Galić. In Rome, a priest distributed pictures of Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac. It was very dangerous to take that picture to the single-minded country of that time. I decided to pass it on despite the advice of the pilgrimage leader, so whatever God gives. I put it in my bosom. And it worked for me", rev. Ilija gladly shared with us.

Thus, in September of the same year, he truly became a seminarian at the classical gymnasium in Šalata in Zagreb. "I worked hard in learning and spirituality. I participated in the publication of the seminary magazines Osvit and Ostvarenje. As a high school graduate, I published my collection of poems Pogled u nebo (1974). Full of faith and enthusiasm, I applied for seminary. But in 1974, I found myself in the JNA barracks in Brčko, where I received an indictment accusing me of speaking of Cardinal Stepinac as a martyr, witness and saint, while the communist authorities considered him a war criminal. I served my sentence in Zenica from November 25^th 1975 to March 29^th 1977, with a break after the verdict from the beginning of January 1976 until I went to serve my sentence in Zenica in the second half of June 1976, when I enrolled to study theology at the Sarajevo seminary. During my imprisonment, I worked and read in my spare time", recalled our interlocutor.

In Sarajevo, he completed philosophy and theology, i.e. theological studies, so that he could be ordained a priest, which happened on June 27^th 1982.

Since then, he has worked in various parishes and ministries. First as parish vicar of the cathedral parish and employee of the monthly magazine Crkva na kamenu.

Impact

In September 1986, he enrolled in the study of Croatian language and literature at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo, where he completed the first year, and then transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb at the beginning of the next academic year, where he graduated in Croatian studies on March 2^nd 1992. "On April 25^th 1989, I graduated in theology at the Catholic Theological Faculty of the University of Zagreb so that I could teach religious education at the school, which was discussed at the time, and I completed three years of post-graduate studies, which I did not finish due to the drama of the wartime and new pastoral responsibilities.

By the bishop's decree from August 1992, I came to Mostar for the same service in the Crkva na kamenu, which I performed with some other duties until the beginning of December 2007. When the Catholic Information Office Mostar (KIUM) was established in Mostar in early November 1992, I was appointed director and remained in that position until January 15^th 2000. (...) I taught the Croatian language to interns for theology and seminary at the High Vrhbosna School of Philosophy and Theology, which operated in Bol on Brač due to the hardships of the war, and then in Sarajevo after returning to the seminary, all that was from 1992 to 1996. I was a regular lecturer of several subjects at the Theological Institute in Mostar from 1994 until 2015 and for a short time in Sarajevo", revealed rev. Ilija, who also collaborated with numerous magazines.

He also published several books and did a lot of proofreading, "and there was a lot of work and personal efforts to make the work in question good. In this sense, I put a lot of effort into working in my spare time to help others. However, for all that and much else, I am grateful to God who guided me in my overall human and priestly activity".

Accidental chaplain

As he revealed to us, at the time he went to study, in the Church in Herzegovina, there were quite a few priests, two, three or even four of whom worked in the newspaper Crkva na kamenu, who also had parish duties in Mostar. "I was sent by Bishop Pavao Žanić, the founder of the newspaper and publishing business, to study the Croatian language in 1986. It was not easy for me, but since I loved the language and that thorough knowledge would help me in my work on publishing church newspapers and books, it wasn’t so difficult. The study lasted less than six years. At the end of his studies, the Homeland War began, and with it many other troubles. However, the aforementioned paper was published regularly, and after the war, many books were printed that I proofread. When I was enrolled in the religious classical gymnasium in Šalata in Zagreb, where civilian professors also taught, and that was exactly 50 years ago, which we will celebrate in June this year, I devoted myself to learning all the subjects, and somehow again especially the Croatian language. The professors themselves encouraged me to do this because they noticed the accuracy of the accent learned in the elementary school in Grabovica and Prisoje. The professors were very pleased with my knowledge of all verb forms, especially the auxiliary verb to be, which I learned thanks to the teachers in my hometown. This story about prosody, about verbal and noun forms and about all other orthographic, grammatical, semantic and syntactical facts had its continuation both during studies in Sarajevo and in Zagreb", the poet Drmić told us and began to sort through his memories from his student days in Zagreb.

"Since I lived in a convent of Dominican sisters, I was very lucky to be able to use books from their library. The students learned this from me, so they always asked me to lend them one of the rare books at that time and for our needs. I was happy to do that (...) This fact at that time elevated me in the eyes of the students as a young priest studying, not to mention the elevation of the nuns who for years acquired all that literature and kept it carefully. Communism and atheism reigned then, and the Church with all its affairs was considered backward. It is worth mentioning one more fact from my study days, which is that more than 100 male and female students from my study group loved me as a priest and I was a kind of chaplain to them. I directed them to the sacraments of baptism, etc. At that time, we had professor Ante Stamać who taught us the Bible, which interested them so much that I had to explain certain parts of the Old and New Testament to them every day during the breaks, as well as everything about the sacraments, which a good part of these students also received in some parishes and especially the cathedral, and even then incognito the children of some of our professors and student friends from other studies", rev. Ilija happily shared.

100 euros!

When we asked him what it was like to be a student priest at the time he was studying, he replied that there were all types of students in Sarajevo - atheists, Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims. "As soon as they found out that a priest was studying with them, because that's how I introduced myself to the professor's explicit questions about having completed primary and secondary schools, and in my case also having completed the Faculty of Theology, they immediately bombarded me with various questions. It was our daily discussion or pleasant conversation. When they found out that I was going to celebrate holy mass in the church of St. Joseph at Marijin Dvor, about 15 of them came to that Holy Mass, atheists, Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims. This was repeated several times. The discussion after that was very interesting, especially their comments on my sermons", this versatile priest revealed to us, whose first book he edited was Zemlja Zumbulova by rev. Petar Vuletić Šjor, and the last - so far - a book of sermons by the Archbishop of Vrhbosna, Metropolitan Msgr. Tomo Vukšić Kršćanin je svjedok nade.

He also revealed to us an anecdote from his "lecturing internship". "My schoolmate is an excellent connoisseur of the Croatian language, but he still allowed me to proofread some of his articles and books. He once said to me: 'If you find an error in my published article in a collection, I will give you 100 euros.' I took that collection, found its text and began to read carefully. The text is excellent, the style is excellent, everything is clear, but I still managed to find an error. It hid itself in the verb 'obsolete': it was written in Croatian and was missing a letter. I went to him and told him that I managed to find one mistake after all. He opened and examined several dictionaries, and when he himself convinced himself that this verb was written wrong, he opened his wallet and gave me 100 euros. I gave away euros as a gift to the ones in need", said rev. Ilija.

Sinful beings…

Since he himself worked in the journalism industry for many years, we were interested in his attitude regarding the use of language in this business today and how "literate" journalists are, in his opinion, but also how much attention is paid to proofreading. "Today, a lot of writing is done on a computer and mobile phone, where neither style, spelling, nor grammar is looked at. It can spoil the language of any reader. A lot could be said about the language of print media, but that requires more space and time. In short, everyone encounters mistakes, some spot them all, some a good number, and some very few. There are also those who do not bother with mistakes in the text, because they have nothing "to say" about it", said, in his own style, our interlocutor who, although excellent in proofreading, is always glad that someone reads his text and points out mistakes, "if not any others, then certainly stylistic ones. Mistakes always creep in, because we humans are sinful beings."

From rev. Ilija's life, which is anything but monotonous and dry, we read how alive and interesting language is in essence and what paths it can take us all on. He used his language to evangelize, be a priest, act in charity... and all because the love of the word in all its forms is written on his heart.