Berislav Kosier

Born 1930. in Belgrade. Yugoslav writer, author of prose, poetry, esseys and journalism. Political prisoner in his youth (Naked Island on the Adriatic sea); afterwards regarded as a constant intellectual dissident. He received over 20 domestic and international literary and dramatic awards, however there was not a single yugoslav "state" award among them. Up to now his literal works are tranlated on 12 foreign languages.

published in the edition Anima Mundi (Soul of the World) by the eminent yugoslav Publishing House ESOTHERIA, Belgrade

Apolyd, a young travelling Christian preacher in the first and second decade of the 4th century, had already lived through many misfortunes: incarceration, torture and partial crippling by the cruel authorities of the Roman Empire in the Near East during the final persecution of Christians.

Ruphus Decimus Kharon, an intelligent cynic and absolute master of Antioch and the entire diocese of the Orient, indulged himself in a long-standing game of "cat and mouse" with Apolyd. For Kharon, Apolyd represented the new educated generation of Christians, and that meant a greater threat to the Empire than their primitive predecessors.

Apolyd, however, was deeply dissatisfied with the entire situation of the legal or half-legal Christian communities, with their social position and with the quality of their faith. He believed that they had abandoned the authentic principles of Christianity. Therefore, emulating the early Christian communities, Apolyd founded his own little community that would spread God's true message - trough its poverty, simplicity, righteousness and completely equality, as well as with its special individual relationship with God.

A huge historical turn of events had taken place and profoundly changed all the ancient world! In 313 A.D. the czar Constantine the Great, with his decree called The Edict of Milan, legalized Christianity in the Empire, with the clear perspective of turning it into the "state religion". The prefect Ruphus Decimus Kharon, under a false pretense obeying the czar's decision, appointed exactly Apolyd as the head of the Christian Church' institution in Antioch... Two fierce adversaries in the recent past, they were now shoulder to shoulder "sharing" the power: Kharon the secular state power and Apolyd the spiritual power.

What would become of Apolyd and his ideals? Apolyd secretly belief that he was parhaps the next Son of God, the successor to Jesus from Nazareth. Would he try to impose his own faith to the already established Church? Or would he, infected by his new position, sink into the moral decay?

The possible "key" od the novel GOD'N'CZAR might be found in the following sentences:

Could anyone return the muddied water to its spring so that it would be clean and pure again? One always pays dearly for such an attempt, because the water refuses to flow backwards and the one who is attempting is only a feeble human being, suspectible to pain, decay, death.

And so it goes in all times, since the world has existed. And until its end.