Lives of the Serbian Saints

tr. Yanich and Hankey, 1921

11. The Life of the Saintly and Just Stephen, Serbian Despot

After the days of the Serbian Tsar, Lazar Grebelyanovich, who received a martyr’s death on the field of Kossovo (on the fifteenth day of June in the year 1389), his first-born son, Stephen Lazarovich, began to rule in Serbia, not with the title autocrat, but called despot.¹ He is known among his people by the name Stephen the Tall, and he ruled over Rascia and the countries round about for thirty-eight years. To his own peaceful heart he took the sorrows of his people, and he endured with patience the misery which had fallen upon the state. His title was Despot Stephen, by the grace of God, Lord of all Serbia and the coastlands and the lands along the Danube. The monument of this godly soul remains unto this day in the monastery Rasava, which we call Manasia. He lived for such a space as pleased the Lord, and died on the ninth day of July in the year 1427. And because he was without child and his two brothers, Vulk and Lazar, had been beheaded by order of the Sultan Musa in Philipopolis in the year 1405, he caused George Brankovich to succeed him in the despot’s position. He was the second son of Vulk Brankovich, who was son-in-law of Tsar Lazar, having for wife his daughter Mara, so that George was the son of this Mara. When he had received the power from the aforesaid Stephen, he chose for his capital Smederevo, and to comfort those Serbians who lived under the Turkish yoke, he had himself declared despot, receiving authority from his father-in-law, John Palæologus, whose daughter Irene he had married. But when he saw that his position as despot would be beset by many dangers, he made ready for himself in good time a refuge in Hungary, receiving it from the Hungarians to whom he ceded Belgrade. While he was there, in Hungary, setting his affairs in order, came Murat with his army and captured Smederevo. He took prisoner the despot’s son Grgur, and imprisoned him with his brother Stephen, first in Adrianople, and afterwards in Cappadocia. There he put out their eyes: but their father heard not of this cruel deed.

At this time the despot George, with his wife Irene and his youngest son, Lazar, wandered through the Hungarian country and the coastlands without fatherland, without money, and without a place to rest his head, because he was everywhere pursued by the enmity of the Turks. At last he came back to Hungary, and when it came about that Sultan Murat desired peace with the Hungarians, he called George to him that he might go between them, promising that he would give him back the Serbian despotdom and his sons. The peace was concluded and George received his reward and his two sons. But when he saw that the light of their eyes was gone he wept with sorrow and scarce could stand.

When the Hungarians broke the treaty and their plighted word, they were smitten near Varna; but George remained in his own land. From this time forward George and the Serbian lands were often in difficulties because of Hunyadi, the leader of the Hungarians, or because of the Turks. To secure himself on the one side the despot George made a treaty with Hunyadi: but by this means he enraged Mahmoud, who had taken Constantinople and now came with his army and conquered the Serbian lands and forced the despot to set forth on his wanderings again with his children. After this second exile from his fatherland in the ninetieth year of his age, he sought aid from the Hungarians, with whose help he thought to take again his country. But this he did not bring to pass: so he came back to his fatherland and went to live near the Danube instead of returning to Smederevo. Not long after he was taken prisoner by Michael Silatidy, chief of the Hungarians, but he was ransomed and went to Smederevo, where he died on the twenty-fourth day of December in the year 1487. All his possessions he left to his wife Irene and his sons Grgur, Stephen, and Lazar. Now Irene desired her first-born, Grgur, to receive the throne of the despot, although he was blind. But Lazar the youngest was opposed to this because of his blindness; and he drove him out and killed his mother with poison. But Stephen, the middle brother of the three, though blind, he took to himself, The exiled Grgur came to the Sultan Mahmoud II to seek help, but when he received it not he went to the Holy Mountain and was made monk by the name German, and there he died.

Now when the people heard that Lazar had slain his mother by poison, they were so enraged against this matricide that all hearts were turned from him and they refused him obedience. And after this came Sultan Mahmoud with his army, and Lazar, when he perceived the greatness of the forces against him, either from fear or because his conscience was troubled by the killing of his mother, fell sick and gave up his sinful soul in the year 1458.

Now we begin the history of the holy and just Stephen. From his youth he was very gentle and God-fearing, obedient to his parents in all things, courteous to his brothers, and to all others meek and peace-loving. He was wise and instructed in the Holy Scriptures while he was yet young. On this foundation his training was made secure and his soul was enlightened by the light of eternal truth; and he kept his heart pure with the teaching of the Gospel commandments of virtue. Now when George, his father, was treating with Sultan Murat, that he might save the Serbian state from the Turks, and made proposals of peace, Murat demanded, as a condition of that peace, that he should give him his daughter Mara for wife. The unhappy father gave up his daughter, for he chose rather to deliver his people from evil than to save himself from the sorrow of a parent’s heart. Knowing the gentleness of his son Stephen, his father sent him to be a guard for his sister and to comfort her in her sadness in that strange land. And he, ever obedient as son and as brother, went to Adrianople, the Sultan’s capital, in the year 1435, and there lived some long time. But the Sultan, in his lust for the conquest of foreign lands, and blind to that justice which is pleasing to the Lord, advanced against his wife’s father and took Smederevo and the fortress and Grgur also, the first-born son of George, whom he carried away captive. Owing to this calamity both brothers found themselves in the hands of the Sultan, who kept them close in Adrianople. And when men told the Sultan that his prisoners were plotting against him with their father, he sent them to Cappadocia, and soon after, to prevent any further designs with their father against himself, he ordered that they should be made blind. Thus our godly Stephen, free from all evil and for no fault of his, received this terrible punishment. Yet his faith in the Lord and His good Providence never failed, but he bore his misfortune with a strong heart, comforted by his clear conscience. After some time when peace was made between the Hungarians and Sultan Murat through the labours of despot George, Stephen returned with his brother to his fatherland. After the death of his father and the driving out of his elder brother Grgur through the act of his younger brother Lazar, and when his mother had been poisoned by that same son and this Lazar was himself dead, Stephen heard that the Turks, ever increasing in power, had burned the splendid monastery of Mileshevo. Moreover he perceived that they were making ready to destroy all the noble monuments of the godly Serbian kings and tsars; wherefore he determined for righteousness and his people’s sake, to appear before his subjects as Serbian despot. This he did with the help of some of the nobles in the year 1461. But this was not pleasing to many of the people, who chose rather to be obedient to the Turks than to their own despot. Therefore they were angry because he did this, and they showed their hatred not only by dethroning him but by sending him bound as a prisoner far from his fatherland, into Dalmatia. After some time he was delivered from his bonds and imprisonment and all the troubles that had come upon him, and he went back to his fatherland. He hoped that his people would atone for their former insults by well doing; but his return was in vain, for he saw again the malice of his subjects. Smederevo was taken once more by the Turks, and Stephen went away, taking with him nothing but his title of despot. When he heard tell that some of his people had designs against his life, he hid himself now in one place, now in another, and at last found safe refuge with the Prince of Albania, the brave George Scanderbeg. Here he married, taking for wife the daughter of this prince, Angelina, a maid gifted with every virtue, known among our people by the name Maika Angelia (Mother Angelina). She bore to him two sons, George, who was afterwards Archbishop Maxim, and John, who in his time was despot.

Some time after the Turks invaded the country of Albania, bringing fear and trembling to men’s hearts, as they ever did. And because Stephen knew that the Turks pursued after him that they might utterly destroy the dynasty of Brankovich, he made ready in haste to go, and passed over to the country of Italy, where he lived some years with his wife and children. Then he fell ill of the sickness that often had troubled him, and his last hour came and he gave his soul to the Lord, dying in the fifty-sixth year of his life in the year 1468. His body was buried in this foreign land and remained there till the year 1486, when his sons, together with their mother Angelina, moved his remains, glorified with incorruption, to Sirmie. There they placed them in the church of the Holy Evangelist Luke, in the town of Kupinovo, near the river Sava, and they healed many people who were in evil plight. In the name of Jesus Christ Our Lord, to Whom, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now and for evermore. Amen.

Notes

The title despot merely = prince, and has none of the evil associations we have given to it.