HE CHEATED DEATH THREE TIMES – IT SHAPED HIS PATH - The story of Miroslav Hadži Vasić: ‘I treated Patriarch Pavle for 15 years; towards the end

I’m the youngest of all my siblings, the ninth child. When I was born, my father ordered my mother to throw me away. Later, I became the one he swore by, and everyone else—my brothers and sisters—could stand on one side, and I on the other, and he would say, “Let it be as Miroslav says.” At that moment, it was grandmother Ljubica—his mother—who saved me.

Childhood, first love

I had a happy childhood, cherished as the youngest. My village, which I love and still visit monthly for a few days, was the first in the area without a single shop or facility. We lived with our mother and grandmother, while our father worked as a stationmaster in Belgrade and visited occasionally. After I finished third year of primary school, we all moved to Belgrade.

It was in the village that I fell in love for the first time, in sixth grade, during summer holidays with my grandmother. A girl from Belgrade had come to visit her aunt there, and we spent the summer together. The feelings were mutual—we dated for about a year. It was a pure, unspoiled kind of love, the kind they say one never forgets. Unfortunately, we’re not in contact and I don’t even know if she’s still alive.

Bone setting

In his spare time, my father practised bone setting, which he had learned from a French doctor while serving in a medical unit on the Salonika front. He became one of the best bonesetters in the former Yugoslavia and could even treat open fractures. His mother collected medicinal herbs and was a renowned herbalist. I helped both of them from an early age. Even in lower primary school, I knew how to correct dislocations, identify plants and remember what they were good for, and how to mix them. Plants have remained a great passion of mine, and I would love to dedicate myself to them completely in the future.

Trauma

When I was 17, during a school internship while training to be an electrician, I was struck by a 35,000-volt electric shock due to someone else's negligence. It was hell. The jolt threw me off a ladder and I fell from a height of 27 metres, suffering 24 fractures and burns all over my body. Although I received medical care, I was clinically dead three times and completely immobile for two years. It was a battle for survival, and I knew that if I lived, I would devote myself to helping people. Through God's will and the efforts of doctors, that’s exactly what happened. Thanks to my father's persistence—he treated me for years with balms made from my late grandmother’s recipes—I came back to life.

Father Gavrilo

It was Father Gavrilo who quite literally got me back on my feet. At the time, he was a monk at the Monastery of the Holy Archangels in Skopska Crna Gora. I had been bedridden for almost two years at the old Military Medical Academy, and a neighbour of mine heard about him and took me to Skopje by van. We found him unloading hay from a cart. He told my neighbour to bring me into the church and sit me where the bishop would usually sit. I fell asleep in the meantime. He came and began reading the Anointing with Oil prayer over me. He read and read—and suddenly, I jolted upright and stood on my feet. How? Only the Lord knows.

From that moment until his death five years ago, I visited him every Sunday and helped out at every monastery he stayed in—from Zagreb to Šid. He had the gift of spiritual insight, which is the dream of every monk.

Wife, children, and declining health

After recovering, I completed a trade school and started working at the old Merkator. That’s where I met my wife Ljiljana, and we married in 1977. Two years later we had our daughter Marina, then Marija, then Veljko. Their births were the happiest moments of my life.
A year after our first child was born, I suffered a heart attack due to the effects of the electric shock, and for years doctors couldn’t get my blood pressure under control. The lowest it ever went was 220 over 180. I regulated it with a heart-strengthening tea, the recipe for which was given to me by a monk. Today, at the age of 72, my blood pressure is perfect—120 over 80—and I still drink the tea occasionally.
The collapse of the country and a chance encounter

I worked for a while as a city bus driver on route 26, and later as a supervisor in several companies. My wife and I worked at the Slovenian company Merkur, an agricultural cooperative from Ptuj, until it collapsed along with the entire Yugoslav federation. For the next year, I sold petrol on the street.

One day, a jeep with diplomatic plates pulled over. A Japanese man and his wife got out and asked if the petrol was good. As we talked, a man who was also selling petrol—a retired police officer—complained of a headache and asked me to massage him. The Japanese man noticed and asked if I knew what I was doing. I told him I was self-taught. He asked whether I’d like to learn more—he held seminars in Belgrade, Budapest, Timișoara, Sofia. The course cost 1,200 Deutsche Marks, and the average monthly wage back then was about five Marks. He asked only to see my hands, then said there was a chance that the top student would receive free tuition.

Free tuition

Of the 42 people enrolled, only two of us weren’t doctors. The course lasted four and a half months, every day, with theory immediately followed by practice. In the end, I received free tuition, and the instructor I had met on the street turned out to be Masayuki Saionji, the best Japanese chiropractor—who, sadly, later died in an accident.

With that diploma, I could have opened a clinic anywhere in Europe, but not in our country, so I completed a Higher Physiotherapy School. After that, more Japanese chiropractors came—who are considered the best in the world—and I also continued my training in Russia.

Encounter with the Patriarch

I met the Patriarch shortly after I began practising chiropractic and phytotherapy professionally, at the Vitovnica Monastery through Father Tadej, whom I had known and collaborated with for many years. He had very effective formulations; I have about 400 recipes for various illnesses that he gave me, all based on herbs that grow in the Balkans. He collected the recipes diligently, but he couldn’t practise healing himself as he was a member of the clergy. So, he chose carefully to whom he would give that blessing.
When we were talking with Father Tadej—among other things about who did what—Patriarch Pavle “scanned” everything. There was no need to say much, because he had an incredible ability to assess a person in seconds, without that person even realising it.

Beginning of treatment and friendship

In the early 1990s, when we met, the Patriarch was still in good health and condition. I received an invitation from the Church to visit him, from a wonderful woman who was by his side and looked after him almost until the very end. Initially, she would invite me to visit, and later the Patriarch himself would call. At the time, he had suffered a burn injury, having accidentally knocked the shower with hot water while stepping into the cabin. I brought him a healing cream specially made for burns—and that’s how it all began…

We saw each other almost every day or every other day for the next 15 years. Treatment was provided as needed. He wasn’t ill; he reached old age as a healthy man. But, as he himself used to say, there is no illness worse than old age. Being a monk is no simple matter, and to reach such an age (the Patriarch passed away at 95 – editor’s note) while living a monastic life is equivalent to living to 130 as a layman.

He would ask me to adjust his bones with a smile and the words, “Come on, give me a little click.” Sometimes I felt it wasn’t strictly necessary, but he enjoyed it. I also made him some tinctures, for example, an immunity balm based on medicinal herbs and honey. He was an exceptionally disciplined patient. When we would start discussing it, he would often say, “I’m not the Patriarch now, I’m your patient.”

Reasonable in all things

Patriarch Pavle respected doctors and trusted them, in part because he was a very well-educated man. He didn’t join the monastery after just three years of primary school and spend the rest of his life praying. He was a truly learned man, exceptional and reasonable in every respect—literally every respect. He enjoyed joking and storytelling, but he also had a serious side. In fact, with him, you could never quite tell when he was being serious and when he wasn’t. It’s not my place to judge, but I believe we won’t have another Patriarch like him for a long time. Many years will pass...

Charity marathons

I travelled a lot and studied, including going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On that occasion, I was gifted an icon of Saint Gerasimos, over 200 years old, by the abbot of the Holy Trinity Monastery—it's the most valuable item I possess. It was painted using natural earth pigments mixed with egg yolk, a technique no longer in use. Icons like that are only found in certain monasteries.
I’m part of the athletic club Noble Heart, which organises charity marathons and collects aid for those deemed most in need—whether it’s a child needing surgery, a roof over someone’s head, or for completing a holy shrine. We have a website, and people get in touch to offer help. The runs are done in stages, but I don’t participate directly given my weight—I go along to support the team and, if anything needs fixing, I take care of it so we can keep going. Just recently, we marked 25 years of the organisation’s existence, and four days ago I received a medal for merit from the Athletics Federation of Serbia.
Every one of our marathons is held with the blessing of the current Patriarch, and races are organised every year, often several times. For instance, in 2016, marking 100 years since the Battle of Kajmakčalan, our runners completed a 1,000-kilometre route from the Privina Glava Monastery to the peak of Kajmakčalan. I’ve often accompanied teams running from Belgrade to Moscow—like in 2005, for Victory Day. In fact, I’ve toured all of Russia, Lake Baikal—everywhere.

Hilandar

I’ve been to the Hilandar Monastery 56 times. I go every year, sometimes more than once—accompanying marathoners, cyclists, various athletes, and also on my own. I stay there for several days and “treat” the monks, do everything needed, as there’s a clinic attached to the monastery. Various doctors and specialists volunteer to help, and it all started with a call from Patriarch Pavle. The people there do physically demanding work—they have vast estates, olive groves, vineyards, plum orchards—you name it.

A family legacy

I’ve treated everyone, from street cleaners to heads of state—the entire Karađorđević family, with whom we’re family friends—as well as the Patriarch. I hope one of my descendants will carry on the family tradition. Aside from my three children, I have two grandsons and four granddaughters. My son Veljko is a physiotherapist—he works with me, he’s talented, but he doesn’t have the same passion and love for the work.

I do this job out of love—there’s no need for me to earn money. I’ve been retired for 12 years, my entire family is financially secure, the children have completed their education, have jobs—one daughter lives in the US—they have everything. So do I, but believe me, I enjoy it when I can help someone. Just the other day, they brought a 12-year-old girl with a dislocated hip—one leg is around ten centimetres shorter and twisted as well. The parents were in tears, saying they’d been suffering for two years, being sent from one doctor to another, one scan to the next, with no idea what to do anymore. Of course, nothing that didn’t happen overnight can be fixed overnight—but with time, it can be.

I see that two of my grandsons, Mihailo and Maksim, are interested in helping when I work. They’re not biological brothers, but they love each other as if they were. The older one has already said, “Grandad, when I’m off school, I’ll come work with you.” The younger one immediately said he wanted to as well. He’s interested in plants too—constantly asking me questions. We recently took him to the village, everything was in bloom, and he kept asking: “Grandad, what’s this? What’s that? Is this poisonous? Is this not? Is this a good plant?” I can see he’s genuinely interested.

The meaning of life

To me, the meaning of life is family—that everyone be healthy and united. Everything else is fleeting. All material possessions are transient—wealth brings happiness to no one. What truly remains and gives life meaning is family and children. That is what’s worth living for.

Nataša Lazović