October 3, 2023 – Fr Smiljan Kožul was the most famous Croatian exorcist, a profession he practiced daily for years. He passed away on Monday, aged 81. He was an assistant to Don Gabriel Amorth, the leading exorcist in Rome, and for eight years held the position of exorcist in the Archdiocese of Zagreb.
As Index found out from his close associates in 2015, he stopped practicing exorcism around 2000. Their source shared that he did not have the bishop’s permission to practice. Once a month, though, he would lead spiritual retreats.
“Thousands of Croats are captured by black magic,” Kožul said in 2011. In another interview, he said that out of the hundreds of people who contact him, only “10 percent of them are possessed by the devil, while the rest are mentally ill.”
The Croatian exorcist claimed that he performed hundreds of exorcisms himself, and on one occasion, according to him, they brought him a possessed eight-month-old baby who did not sleep for more than 20 minutes at a time. After his ceremony, the baby fell asleep in his arms.
Life and Work of fr Smiljan Kožul
As 24Sata writes, Fr Smiljan Kožul (81) died on Monday after a long illness. Other than his most famous title, he was a professor, doctor of ecclesiastical legal sciences, ecclesiastical judge, charismatic, and founder of Radio Maria and the Croatian Movement of the Rosary for Conversion and Peace.
Cardinal Franjo Kuharić ordained him a priest in the Zagreb Cathedral on June 29, 1968. From 1972 to 1977, he studied Church Law at the Pontifical University Antonianum, where he obtained the title of Doctor of Ecclesiastical Legal Sciences and worked as a sacramental law professor from 1977 to 1988. In 1977, Pope Paul VI appointed him defender of marriages at the Congregation for Sacraments, which he held until his return to Croatia in 1988.
During the difficult moments of the Homeland War in Croatia, with the cooperation of a large number of priests, monks, nuns, and laypeople, Fr Kožul founded the Rosary Movement for Conversion and Peace, which more than 100,000 people joined. The movement was approved for the Zagreb Archdiocese by Cardinal Franjo Kuharić with a decree dated October 28, 1993. In the months that followed, it was also approved by all the other bishops of Croatia, as well as Cardinal Vinko Puljić for the Sarajevo Archdiocese and Bishop Franjo Komarica for the Banja Luka Diocese.
In 1998, after meeting one of the world’s greatest charismatics, Rufus Pereira, and at his persuasion, Fr Kožul joined the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. Over time, he became one of the most famous charismatic priests in Croatia,” writes HKM.
The Croatian exorcist: A Testimony
Index also shared an excerpt about possession from the portal of the Mertojak St. Josip Parish.
“According to the mother’s story, the scene revealed her 13-year-old daughter’s maximum obsession with Satan. Wanting to free her from the demon, she, together with her godmother and a friend, took her daughter to a mass for healing. Such masses are organized monthly by a prayer organization in the New Zagreb Church of the Holy Cross under the leadership of Fr Dragan Smiljan Kožul.
And while Fr Kožul prayed for the banishment of evil spirits, the poor girl let out inarticulate screams threw herself on the floor, hurting everyone who happened to be near her. The worst came after the mass, when everyone left the church, and Fr Kožul began saying exorcistic prayers to free the girl from evil spiritual temptations. The prayer lasted almost an hour and a half while the little girl kept throwing herself around, snatching, and screaming.
How it started
The mother remembers that it all started after the decision to baptize her daughter after the family abandoned the religious life in previous years. She testifies that her daughter returned the year before, after a one-month visit to her father in Germany, completely changed.
“I only found out later that she joined a society that listened to techno music 24 hours a day and organized satanic gatherings. It all started one morning after her return when she woke up with bruises on her face, arms, and legs and severe stomach cramps. She felt weakness and would collapse and sometimes lose consciousness.
The worried mother, a medical worker, tried to find a reasonable medical explanation but failed. When she noticed a star-shaped bruise on the girl’s arm, the daughter explained that she had nightmares that night and that she was fighting evil forces.
“She admitted that she vomited some green liquid several times and that, from time to time, an unknown force would throw her on the bed. Her friend told me that on their holiday that summer, a deep voice spoke from her with evil intentions. My daughter doesn’t remember that, because she was in a trance…”
