Lives of the Serbian Saints

tr. Yanich and Hankey, 1921

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The Serbian Saints have been for the most part the national heroes and their lives are the history of Serbia for the period during which they flourished—the period, that is, during the Middle Ages when Serbia became a free nation and for a time an empire. Any attempt, therefore, to give in this place a complete historical survey would merely result in repetition of much that follows in the lives themselves. The purpose of this note is rather to provide a setting into which the biographies may be fitted, and to fill up some of the gaps caused by the fact that some of Serbia’s greatest heroes could not well find a place in the list of her saints owing to certain unfortunate incidents in their early lives.

We may begin, then, with the point in history when the Serbians became the northern neighbours of the Greek Empire somewhere in the seventh century, and had accepted, nominally at least, the Christian religion. In reality they seem to have clung closely to their old pagan nature worship and the new religion took little hold upon them until the ninth century, when Cyril and Methodius came among them as missionaries and gave them a Liturgy in their own tongue. By the tenth century we find the country divided up among a number of small princes, who in turn subdivided their territory among their zhupanes, or petty chiefs. Their principal enemies were their powerful neighbours, the Bulgarians, who frequently invaded the land and sometimes occupied large parts of it. To this period belongs the story of St. Vladimir and his martyrdom at the hands of the Bulgarian king, Vladislav. During the following century the Bulgarian power rapidly declined, however, and the Greek Emperor found himself in a position to extend his authority northward, so that by the middle of the twelfth century most of the Serbian provinces recognized him as their suzerain.

The Nemanya Dynasty

It is from this time that the authentic history contained in these lives of the saints begins, for in 1169 Stephen, afterwards known as the monk St. Simeon, founded the Nemanya dynasty and the Christian state began to be established. The story of his early struggles in the province of Rascia against his brothers, and his victories over them and his suzerain the Greek Emperor, is told in his life. He succeeded in forming an independent kingdom for himself in Rascia and along the coast of the Adriatic, but when he pressed southward in league with the Bulgarians, and occupied the land round Uskub and Prizren, he met with reverses and finally abdicated in favour of his second son, and became a monk.

Of his three sons, the second, Stephen (St. Simon) succeeded his father as Grand Zhupan, the eldest, Vukan, being given only the title of king and the lands along the Adriatic; while the third, Rastko, had already become the monk Sava. The position of Stephen was far from being secure. Vukan, disappointed in his hope of succeeding his father, was prepared to serve the interests of the Hungarian king, who was being encouraged by the Pope to take forcible possession of these Orthodox lands. It was at this juncture that St. Sava, the youngest brother, returned from his monastery in Mt. Athos to support Stephen, and Vukan contented himself with holding Rascia as the vassal of Hungary. Vukan died in 1204, and the troubles which occurred in Hungary about this time freed Stephen from the northern peril. Meanwhile, in the south the fourth Crusade had captured Constantinople, and the Latin state which it established began to menace the small Balkan nations. St. Sava now showed the qualities of a statesman by turning the collapse of the Greek Empire to good account. He approached the Emperor and the Patriarch of Nicæa, and in 1219 obtained from them ecclesiastical autonomy for Serbia and the archbishopric for himself—they were in no position to refuse him these important and far-reaching privileges. Not content with this, he proceeded in the following year to get the imperial sanction for the coronation of his brother as King of Serbia, and himself placed the crown on his head. The remainder of his active years he devoted to establishing order in the independent kingdom, travelling through the country on foot, teaching the people and organizing the spiritual and temporal government of the land.

The result of his labours is to be seen in the years that followed. Not one of the next four rulers died in possession of the throne, each of them being driven out owing to rebellions led by their brothers or sons; yet in spite of these divisions, the state held together owing to the strong foundations that had been laid by St. Sava. Rodoslav, Stephen’s son, who succeeded him in 1227, was dethroned by his brother Vladislav in 1233, and Vladislav by his younger brother Stephen Urosh I in 1242. Stephen Urosh I reigned till 1276, and was then defeated by his son Dragutin on the Plain of Gatsko, while Dragutin had himself to abdicate in favour of his brother Urosh II Milutin five years later. With the accession of Milutin came peace at home and considerable progress. The wealth of the country increased owing to the commercial relations established with Venice and Ragusa, and this increased prosperity showed itself in the great number of churches built at this time. Unlike the church at Studenitza, built by the first Stephen, and most of the ecclesiastical buildings of that day, these churches of Milutin are purely Byzantine in their architecture, a fact probably due to the Greek influence at the court through the marriage of the king with Simonide, the daughter of the Emperor Andronicus. Milutin was also successful in withstanding the Tartar invasion, which destroyed Bulgaria during his reign, and reduced the Tartar prince, Shishman of Widin, to a position of vassalage.

Stephen Dechanski, his son, who succeeded him in 1321, received his second name from the monastery of Dechani which he built as a thankoffering for his great victory over the Bulgarians at Kustendil. He did not long survive this victory. As happened so frequently at this period, the fact that he had taken to himself, as second wife, a Greek princess, Mary, led to his downfall. For a Greek party was formed at court and an attempt was made to declare the son of this second marriage heir to the throne in the place of Dushan, the son of the first marriage. Dushan and his adherents raised a rebellion, and the king was captured and strangled in 1331.

The reign of Stephen Dushan (1331–55) marks the summit of Serbian power and glory. Dushan, who does not appear among his country’s saints owing to the death of his father, was a military genius. It was his ambition to found an empire which should include the Serbians, Greeks and Bulgarians, and to rule all these lands as Tzar. We cannot follow him through the series of brilliant campaigns by which he overran, and added to his dominions, Macedonia, Albania and Epirus. In 1345 he proclaimed himself Tzar of the Serbians and Greeks, and raised the archbishopric of Pech to the dignity of a patriarchate, for which latter act the country was laid under an anathema by the Patriarch of Constantinople and was not freed from it till Tzar Lazar secured the recognition of the national patriarchate thirty years later. In 1347 Dushan continued his victorious campaigns, and brought Epirus, Etolia, Acornania and Thessaly within his dominions. During the next few years his astonishing activities were devoted to the codification of the laws, customs, and ordinances of his predecessors and their solemn promulgation as the law of his empire. But when the complete realization of his dream seemed practically assured, the storm which had been threatening the East so long broke out with fury, and at the very moment when the military genius of Dushan was most needed by his country and by Europe to stem the Turkish invasions, he suddenly died (December 1355).

By the untimely death of Dushan, not only was the empire he had founded doomed to fall to pieces, but the only hope of his own country’s independence disappeared. The weakness of the Greek Empire, which had given him his chance, meant that there was one barrier the less between Serbia and the Turkish invaders. Moreover, the Hungarians chose this moment of calamity for their southern neighbours to attack them, and both Bulgaria and Serbia were overrun and in part annexed, many of the inhabitants, especially in the former country, being forcibly made Catholics. … In such distracting times he ceased to be noticed, and it is the rebel, Vukashin, who had taken most of his empire from him, who meets the Turks and dies in battle against them on the river Maritza in 1371. With this defeat all the Serbian provinces in the south around Uskub were lost. Tzar Urosh himself died childless and forgotten in the same year, and with him the great Nemanya dynasty became extinct.

The Struggle for Independence against the Turks

Such of the Serbian land as still remained to them was now divided between two rulers—Tvrtko, who governed in Bosnia, and Lazar Grebelyanovich. These two princes united their forces and inflicted a defeat on the Turks in 1387, but two years later Sultan Murat returned with a large army, and on the Plain of Kossovo the Serbian army of Lazar was defeated and Lazar himself taken prisoner and beheaded on the 15th of June, 1389. This famous battle and the causes which led to the defeat is sufficiently described in the life of St. Lazar, and need not detain us here. It is characteristic of the Serbian people that they should regard it as the greatest moment in their history, for though overcome they fought and fell in defence of the Cross menaced by the Crescent.

Henceforth their rulers reigned with the title of despot only as vassals of the Turks, paying them tribute in money and men, and on these terms Lazar’s son, Stephen Lazarevich, continued to govern the land from 1389 to 1427. At the beginning of the fifteenth century they were able to improve their lot a little by becoming vassals of Hungary instead of the Sultan, and received from that country the province of Machva, with Belgrade, in order that they might act as a buffer state between their new suzerains and the Turks. This arrangement continued through the reigns of George Brankovich (1427–56) and his son Lazar. But after the death of the latter in 1458 the Sultan again invaded the land and converted it into a Pashalik, so that Serbian despots who owned anything beside their title ceased to exist. The stories of the unhappy lot of the despot Stephen, his wife Angelina, and his two sons, will sufficiently illustrate the misery of the last days of the Serbian rulers. Their brethren in the north, amongst whom they sought refuge, the relics of the kingdom which Tvrtko founded in Bosnia, shared the same fate a few years later, and Serbian independence was wholly at an end.

We need not dwell upon the history of the next three hundred years. Thousands of the people were enslaved and sold in the markets of the East. Thousands emigrated to Hungary rather than live under the hated rule of the Turks. Those who were left did not lightly accept their fate, many of them forming themselves into bands of outlaws which spent their time in wreaking vengeance on the oppressors whenever the chance occurred. The exploits of these Haiduks, as they were called, are the favourite subject of the well-known national songs, and they served to keep alive something of the national spirit during these terrible centuries. … But whatever their pains and misery their watchword continued to be, “Za krst tchasni i slobodu zlatnu”—“For the venerated Cross and for golden Freedom.”

It was not till the year 1804 that the fight for freedom could really be renewed. In that year they began their rebellion under Kara George and met with astonishing successes. They fought throughout the Napoleonic wars, Austria and Russia being each of them glad of such diversions as the Serbian peasants could make in their neighbourhood. But neither of these Powers was prepared to stand by her when she ceased to serve their purpose, and they infamously deserted the gallant men who had fought for them at the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812. The work of liberation had almost to be begun over again when Milosh Obrenovich raised the standard of revolt three years later. Then began a struggle for freedom which lasted nearly through a generation. Unable to drive the Turks from their lands altogether, they had to content themselves with obtaining their independence piecemeal, sometimes fighting alone, sometimes receiving the somewhat reluctant support of the diplomats of Russia. In 1830 Milosh Obrenovich was recognized by the Porte as hereditary Prince, and the national Church was restored, with its own native priests and metropolitan, but the fortresses were still held by the Turks and a tax was still paid to them. Finally, during the years 1876–8 the Turks were entirely driven out and, by the Treaty of Berlin in the latter year, Serbia recovered her complete independence and her territory was increased. In 1882 Milan Obrenovich was proclaimed King of Serbia—her first king since the fall of Lazar on the Plain of Kossovo. And the Balkan wars of 1912 restored to her those lands in the south which had formed a part of the fatherland of so many of her saints.

So Serbia lived again. That such a return to life should have been possible after so many years of maimed existence requires some explanation. There are, no doubt, more causes than one why the spirit of the nation was not killed, but there is no doubt as to which was the principal factor. It was their Church which kept alive in the heart of this people their love for their home and their national aspirations more than any other thing. It was their Church which preserved them from being wholly merged into the Ottoman Empire. The pages that follow tell of the birth and early growth of this indomitable spirit, and reflect that devotion to God and His Church which was to be the salvation of this people and, please God, shall be again.