Zagreb, (IKA) – On June 9, 2015, Fr. Ilija Živković, Ph.D.,former Minister General of the Franciscan Friars, T.O.R., member of the Province of the Croatian Glagolitic Franciscans of the Third Order and professor at the Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb, died after a long illness at the age of 61, in the 41st year of his religious life and the 35th year of his priesthood,at the JordanovacClinical Center for Pulmonary Diseases in Zagreb, according to the Secretariat of the Province.
He was born on May 26, 1954, in Kostrč, the municipality of Orašje,Bosnia and Herzegovina, and entered the minor seminary of the T.O.R. community in 1969. In 1973, he graduated from the T.O.R. secondary school in Odra-Zagreb and in 1980 from the Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Zagreb. In 1983, he completed his licentiate in Franciscan spirituality and theology at the Pontifical University Antonianum in Rome. At the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., he earned a master’s degree in psychology in 1990 and a doctorate in psychology in 1993.
From 1984 to 1994, he served as the pastor of the Croatian Catholic Mission of St. Blaise in Washington, D.C. From 1985 to 1992, he worked at the Voice of America as an announcer, translator and, after 1990, editor of the VOA morning program for Croatia. In 1994, he became the DeputyGeneral Secretary of the Croatian Conference of Bishops (CCB), and in 1995 was appointed as the head of the Press Office of the CCB and the director of the Catholic Press Agency—IKA—Zagreb. In March 1999, he became the director of Croatian Catholic Radio. In April 2001, he was appointed as the superior of the Franciscan T.O.R. monastery in Odra. On June 2, 2001, at the 109th General Chapter of the Third Order Franciscans in Rome, Fr. Ilija Živkovićwas elected Minister General, for a mandate of six years, which he served until 2007.