In 1997 Relja Živojnović had retired from his professional activities. In his professional career Relja Živojnović gave numerus lectures and was a guest lecturer of about 200 times in different countries all over the world. He wrote about thirty articles and chapters in other authors’ books. In 1987 he published in English a book in which he exposed in detail his concept of treatment of the complex cases and the technique and indications for applying retinal surgery. The book was published twice and was later translated into Japanese. For his work and achievements in the field of vitreoretinal surgery he was awarded the Herman Wacker Prize, an award given every second year to one of the top vitreoretinal surgeons in the world. In the same year, he got the von Graefe prize from the German Society of Ophthalmology. During the 90s he was awarded many more prizes from all over the world and in 1996 he received an acknowledgement from the Israeli Army for the treatment of their members.
Immediately, before his retiring, in November 1996, in Antwerp a symposium was organized at which twenty-five lecturers got together, well-known ophthalmologists and friends from four continents. At the end of the Symposium, after is farewell lecture, he was awarded the Order of the Netherlands Lion by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Five years after his retiring at the congress of European Society of Ophthalmology in Istanbul Relja Živojnović got the Charamis Medal, an award that is every fourth year given to an ophthalmologist in Europe. In 2002 at the congress of the European Vitreo Retinal Society a conventional annual lecture was established under the title “Dr. Relja Živojnović Lecture”, and he was presented the medal of EVRS. At the congress of the same society held on Chalcidice, Greece, he got the Diploma of the Greek Ophthalmological Society. In 2003 he received the Diploma and acknowledgement of Croatian Ophthalmological Society. Relja Živojnović is the honorary member of the Greek, German, Colombian and Slovenian Ophthalmological Society. He is a member of the Club Jules Gonin.
