Saint Sava, Archbishop of Serbia
Sava was born in 1169. He was the son of Stefan Nemanja, the Grand Župan of Serbia. As a young man, Sava yearned for the spiritual life, for which he fled to the Holy Mountain, where he was tonsured a monk and lived ac- cording to the ascetic rule with rare zeal. Stefan Nemanja followed the example of his son and came to the Ho- ly Mountain, where he was tonsured a monk and eventually fell asleep in the Lord as the monk Simeon.
Sava obtained the independence of the Serbian Church from the Byzantine emperor and the patriarch, and became the first Archbishop of Ser- bia. Together with his father, he built Hilandar Monastery and, after that, many other monasteries, churches, and schools throughout the Serbian lands. On two occasions he made pilgrimages to the sacred places in the Holy Land. He restored peace between his two brothers, who were estranged because of a struggle for power. He restored peace between the Serbs and their neighbors. In establishing the Serbian Church, he also established the Serbian state and culture. He instilled peace between all the Balkan peoples and worked for the benefit of all—for which he was loved and respected by all who lived in the Balkans. He gave a Christian soul to the Serbian people—a soul that did not perish with the eventual collapse of the Serbian state. Sava reposed in Trnovo, Bulgaria, during the reign of Emperor Asen, on January 12, 1236, after becoming ill following the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of Theophany. King Vladislav translated his body to Mileševo Monastery, from which Sinan Pasha removed St. Sava’s relics, to burn them on Vračar hill in Belgrade on April 27, 1595.
