The Heritage of Saint Sava
Saint Sava founded the autocephalous (self-governing) Orthodox Church in Serbia during the Middle Ages. He was a member of the Serbian royal family, but chose to renounce royal privilege at a very young age, so as to devote his life to the service of God and to the spiritual care and education of the Serbian people.
All but one of the medieval Serbian kings were eventually canonized. Rather than building palaces for themselves, they spent their wealth on churches, monasteries, schools, and other good works that benefited the entire Serbian people.
SerbBlog: Sretna Savindan! Happy Saint Sava’s Day!
Saint Archbishop Sava (Serbian: Свети Сава, Sveti Sava) (1175 – January 14, 1235), originally the prince Rastko Nemanjić (Serbian: Растко Немањић) (son of the Serbian ruler and founder of the Serbian medieval state Stefan Nemanja and brother of Stefan Prvovenčani, first Serbian king), is the first (1219–1233), the most important saint in the Serbian Orthodox Church and important cultural and political worker of that time.
Early life
Rastko was born ca. 1175 in Gradina (near modern-day Podgorica, Montenegro).
In his youth (c. 1192), he fled from his home to join the orthodox monastic colony on Mount Athos (Holy Mountain on the Chalkidiki peninsula) and was given the name Sava. He first traveled to a Russian monastery and then moved to the Greek Monastery of Vatopedi. At the end of 1197 his father, who on becoming a monk was named Simeon joined him. In 1198 they together moved to and restored the abandoned monastery Hilandar (Chilandari, in French) which, since that moment, became the center of Serbian Christian monastic life. Hilandar is one of the twenty monasteries on Mount Athos that still function, and its position in the hierarchy is fourth.
St. Sava’s father took the monastic vows under the name Simeon and died in Hilandar on February 13, 1199. He is also canonised, as Saint Simeon.
Serbian Orthodox Church
After his father’s death, Sava devoted himself to the ascetic life and retreated to a skete close to Karyes which he built himself in 1199. He also wrote the Karyes Typicon valid for both for Hilandar and his skete. The typicon has been inscribed onto a marble board at the skete and still stands there. Sava stayed on Athos until the end of 1207.
In 1208, St. Sava returned to Serbia, where the feuding between his brothers had created a state or anarchy. St. Sava set up his base at Studenica monastery, and started to organize the Serbian Orthodox Church. He had brought with him several monks to help him perform his pastoral and missionary duty among the people. St. Sava eventually managed to free the Serbian church from the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Ohrid. In 1219, St. Sava was consecrated the first archbishop of the new Serbian Church by Patriarch Manuel I of Constantinople, who was then in exile at Nicaea.
Saint Sava is considered the founder of the independent Serbian Orthodox Church and Serbian Orthodox Christians celebrate him as patron saint of education and medicine. He is commemorated on January 27 according to the Julian calendar and on January 14 according to the Gregorian calendar. Since the 1830s, Saint Sava has become the patron saint of Serbian schools and schoolchildren. On his day, students partake in recitals in church.
St. Sava died in Turnovo, capital of the Second Bulgarian Empire, during the reign of Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria. According to his Life, he fell ill following the Divine Liturgy at the Feast of the Epiphany on January 12, 1235. Sava visited Turnovo on his way back from the Holy Land, where he had founded a hospice for Syrian pilgrims in Jerusalem and arranged for Serbian monks to be welcome in the established monasteries there. He died of pneumonia in the night between Saturday and Sunday, January 14, 1235. [1] He was initially buried at the St Forty Martyrs Church in Turnovo, but his holy relics remained there until only May 6, 1237 when they were translated to the Mileševa monastery in southern Serbia. 360 years later, in 1595, the Ottoman Turks unearthed his remains and took them to Vračar hill in Belgrade where they were incinerated on a stake.
A much longer hagiography of St. Sava is available online at the website of St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church in St. Petersburg, Florida. Be sure to stop by if you happen to be in the vicinity.
St. Sava Krsna Slava Celebration (Савиндан)
Fr. Dragomir Tuba and the children of St. Archangel Michael parish on St. Sava’s Day (Jan.27), Akron, OH , turning the Slavski Kolach, which they celebrated Sunday, January 31, 2010.
Photo from Serbian History 101 by Baba Mim
On her “Heroes of Serbia website, Aleksandra Rebic explains the meaning of “Krsna Slava”:
The Krsna Slava is a Christian holiday specific only to Serbs. It is the day of the family’s Patron Saint. Each family has its own special day, and many Serbs throughout the world share the same patron Saint.
Serbian Orthodox parishes and service organizations have their own patron saints, and celebrate the Krsna Slava of their patron saints in much the same way as Serbian families do. In many ways, St. Sava is the patron saint of all Serbians, both in the Balkans and in the diaspora.
Even when the parish has a patron saint other than St. Sava, Serbian Orthodox parishes generally celebrate Savindan to honor “Sveti Sava” as patron saint of the Serbian people, with a Krsna Slava and with an assembly of the parish children singing hymns and reciting prayers and poetry. Click here to view slide show.
