Irinej Dobrijević was a Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Metropolitanate of Australia and New Zealand. He was formerly the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Australia and New Zealand administrator and bishop of the Diocese for Australia and New Zealand of the New Gracanica Metropolitanate. In 2011 Serbian Orthodox Church formed a united Metropolitanate of Australia and New Zealand. The administrative unity of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Australia is considered one of his greatest achievements. In 2016 Dobrijevic was elected a bishop of the Eastern American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church. His see is in New York. Irinej Dobrijevic is considered to be one of the most educated and prominent Serbian Orthodox bishops. He is the official representative of the Serbian Orthodox Church in many international and inter-Church bodies. Fluent in Serbian, English, Greek and German. He thought at the Loyola University in Chicago and Belgrade University in Serbia.
Biography
He was raised and educated in his native Cleveland, where he finished 12th-grade general education. He graduated from the two most prestigious Orthodox theological colleges in the United States—St. Tikhon and St. Vladimir. From the latter, he received his master's degree for his thesis on the life of St. Nikolaj Velimirović. He is a professor at the famous Loyola University in Chicago. At the invitation of Serbian Patriarch Pavle Irinej taught at the Theological Faculty in Belgrade. He belongs to the monastic brotherhood of the monastery of St. Sava in Libertyville, Illinois. He had a prominent role as executive director of the so-called Office for Foreign Affairs of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Washington, D.C., sponsored by the U.S. government and later renamed the Serbian Unity Congress. For several years he was also an editor of the magazine "Cross Orthodoxy", the official SPC publication in the U.S. He has participated in many conferences organized by the Serbian community in the diaspora.
