Youngstown priest doubles as aircraft mechanic

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The priest for a Serbian Orthodox Church on Youngstown’s West Side is a busy man. In addition to leading his congregation as his primary job, he also works five days a week as an aircraft mechanic.

Bosko Stojanovic is one of hundreds who graduated from the Pittsburgh Institute of Aeronautics in Vienna. What makes this story different is he’s an ordained Orthodox priest. Father Bosko, as he is known, came to the U.S. with his family from Yugoslavia in 2001 and was ordained. He got married in 2010, but he had a love for flying small airplanes.

“I always wanted to know everything about things that I do,” he said. I was always fascinated, like everybody else. It’s a mystic, something that we dream about,” Stojanovic said.

Stojanovic now serves the congregation at Holy Trinty Serbian Orthodox Church. And while flying was a passion, he needed to know more.

“And then realized that I do not know a lot about fixing the aircraft. I know how to fly them, but fixing them wasn’t a part of it,” Stojanovic said.

When he first enrolled almost two years ago, Stojanovic was in his 40s. His classmates were all 18 or 19 and fresh out of high school. But soon after graduation, he quickly landed a job with Winner Aviation as a mechanic on small aircraft. He hopes to one day work as an inspector.

“It’s adding on the pilot license to understand the aircraft better,” Stojanovic said.

Working at Winner Aviation takes up Monday through Friday for Stojanovic, but he says his primary job is that of a priest for the 60 families at Holy Trinity.

“That’s something that I fell in love with a long time ago and it’s a calling. I have a great parish,” he said.

For now, Stojanovic said he intends to be an aircraft mechanic until he retires and remains a priest for life.

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