Balkan war opened ordinand's eyes to God

Editor’s note: This is one in our series of profiles on the men who will graduate from St. Augustine’s Seminary this spring and be ordained to the priesthood for various dioceses.

Silvio Eljuga, 41, was born in Zagreb, then part of communist Yugoslavia, now Croatia. During his youth he lived a life separated from God and the church. Different difficulties in his life, especially the war that raged in his country in the 1990s, urged him to rethink his attitude. 

“However difficult this situation was, God brought something good from this evil.

This terrible event did not have only destructive connotations, but it also shed a light on my life,” he said.

“For the first time after so many years, I could see that my life is meaningless and empty, and that it’s a selfish life. And I gave for the first time after so many years, I cried to God for help. And that was the end of my wandering and the beginning of my returning to God.”

After experiencing this profound call to conversion in his mid-20s, Eljuga joined the Neocatechumenal Way where he felt the Lord’s call to follow Him. Helped by those small Christian communities, he responded to the Lord’s call, first as a missionary in neighbouring countries, and by entering the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Toronto where he has been preparing for the priesthood in the archdiocese of Toronto.