Georgije Popović

Georgije Popović (Serbian Cyrillic: Георгије Поповић; 1699 – 12 December 1754) was the Orthodox Metropolitan of Niš (1735-1740), and then the Bishop of Timișoara (1745-1754 or 1757 ).

He was born in 1701 in Stari Vlah. On 3 August 1735, Patriarch Arsenije IV Jovanović Šakabenta appointed him Metropolitan of Niš. Having fled to Austria together with Arsenij IV, in 1745 he managed to become the bishop of Timișoara. He built the episcopal residence in Timișoara, the Cathedral of the Ascension of the Lord, then, in 1750, a triptych for the Studenica monastery, and in 1751 he painted the altar space of the Krušedol monastery. He died on 1 December 1754 and was buried in the Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in Timișoara.

In the book Life and Connections, Dositej Obradović presented him as a free-minded and enlightened thinker. He writes that Bishop Georgije (Popović) interpreted Jesus' parable about the tree and its fruits ("Know the tree of its fruit ... the barren tree is cut down and thrown into the fire") against unmarried, unemployed, and begging Serbian monks, which should be abolished, and "monastic to settle the estates of the family and to convert the monasteries into schools, hospitals, and orphanages. "