Nikola Tesla's close friend Serbian Orthodox priest Father Mateja Stijacic (1883 - 1941).
Nikola Tesla's close friend Serbian Orthodox priest Father Mateja Stijacic (1883 - 1941). When the second world war broke out, archpriest Matija Stijacic was at the head of the Smiljan parish in Gospic. He served in America and Canada, and at the suggestion of Nikola Tesla, with whom he was very close, he returned to serve in the church where Milutin Tesla, Nikola's father, had previously served. He served there as archpriest of the Smiljan parish from 1935 until April 12, 1941. Then the Croatian Ustasha arrested him He was arrested for merely being a Serbian Orthodox priest and took him to the Gospic prison, where he was subjected to terrible torture. They ended his life in Velebit, and threw his mutilated body into one of the Velebit pits. A person could not climb out of such a deep pit without a rope being lowered. Father Mateja was 57 years old when Croats killed him. His son Slavko went to look for his abducted father, but he too was caught and killed by the Ustas...