Saint Sava (1219): Founding the Independent Serbian Church

Saint Sava, born Rastko Nemanjić, founded the independent Serbian Orthodox Church in 1219. That year he was consecrated at Nicaea as the first Archbishop of the Serbs, giving his country a self-governing church alongside its new kingdom. Monk, diplomat, lawgiver and teacher, he became the central figure of Serbian religious and national memory.

Background: a prince who became a monk

Rastko was born around 1174 or 1175, the youngest son of Stefan Nemanja, Grand Župan (ruler) of Serbia and founder of the Nemanjić dynasty. As a teenager he was given a province to govern, but around 1191-1192 he secretly left for Mount Athos, the monastic peninsula in northern Greece, and became a monk under the name Sava.

In 1196 his father abdicated and joined him on Athos as the monk Simeon. In 1198 father and son obtained from the Byzantine emperor Alexios III the deserted monastery of Hilandar and restored it as a Serbian house. Simeon died there in February 1199 and was soon venerated as a saint.

Return to Serbia

Around 1207 Sava brought his father’s relics home to Studenica, the monastery Nemanja had founded. He helped reconcile his quarrelling brothers, Stefan and Vukan, and became abbot of Studenica. He wrote a life of his father, one of the first works of Serbian literature.

As abbot, Sava also drew up rules for monastic life, known as typika, for Hilandar and Studenica, adapting Byzantine models. They show his concern for discipline, care of the sick and the education of monks, and they became patterns for later Serbian monasteries.

In 1217 Stefan was crowned King of Serbia with a crown sent by Pope Honorius III, earning the name “the First-Crowned”. A kingdom now existed, but its church still belonged to the Archbishopric of Ohrid, a Greek-led see then under the rival state of Epirus.

Autocephaly in 1219

After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Byzantine emperor and the Ecumenical Patriarch lived in exile at Nicaea in Asia Minor. In 1219 Sava travelled there. Emperor Theodore I Laskaris and Patriarch Manuel I agreed that the Serbian Church should become autocephalous, meaning its head would be chosen by Serbian bishops, and the Patriarch consecrated Sava as its first archbishop.

Nicaea had reasons to agree: it wanted Serbian goodwill and a counterweight to Epirus, whose ruler controlled Ohrid. The Archbishop of Ohrid, Demetrios Chomatenos, protested that the move was uncanonical, but the decision stood.

In his letters Chomatenos questioned both Sava’s consecration and his right to leave his monastery for a bishop’s throne. The quarrel reflected politics as much as church law: Epirus and Nicaea were rivals for the leadership of the Byzantine world after 1204, and each tried to keep or win the loyalty of neighbouring rulers.

Back home, Sava made Žiča Monastery the seat of the archbishopric and organised new dioceses, replacing Greek bishops with Serbian clergy. He compiled a law book for the church, the Nomocanon (Zakonopravilo), adapting Byzantine church and civil law for Serbian use. Written in the Serbian recension of Church Slavonic, it was used in Serbia for centuries and was later copied in Bulgaria and Russia. Later Serbian tradition also credits Sava with crowning his brother Stefan a second time, by Orthodox rite, at Žiča, though historians debate whether this happened.

Later life and death

Sava made two pilgrimages to the Holy Land, around 1229 and 1234. In 1233 or 1234 he passed his office to his disciple Arsenije. Returning from his second journey, he fell ill in Tarnovo, capital of Bulgaria, and died there in January 1236. His nephew King Vladislav moved his body to Mileševa Monastery in 1237, where it became a major pilgrimage site.

Legacy

Sava’s achievement rested on balance. He kept good relations with both Rome, which had sent the royal crown, and the Orthodox patriarch at Nicaea, while firmly placing the Serbian Church in the Orthodox world. The church Sava founded became the backbone of Serbian identity, especially under Ottoman rule. In 1346, under Stefan Dušan, it was raised to a patriarchate with its seat at Peć. Sava is honoured as the patron of education, and Savindan, 27 January, is a school holiday.

The Ottoman authorities burned his relics in Belgrade in 1594 during a Serbian uprising. The huge Church of Saint Sava at Vračar now stands near the traditional site.

Timeline

• c. 1174/1175: Rastko Nemanjić is born.
• c. 1191-1192: He becomes the monk Sava on Mount Athos.
• 1198: Sava and Simeon restore Hilandar Monastery.
• 1199, February: Stefan Nemanja (Simeon) dies on Athos.
• c. 1207: Sava returns to Serbia with his father’s relics.
• 1217: Stefan the First-Crowned becomes king.
• 1219: Sava is consecrated at Nicaea as first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church.
• 1236, January: Sava dies in Tarnovo.
• 1594: His relics are burned in Belgrade.

Why it matters

The autocephaly of 1219 gave Serbia an independent church to match its kingdom. Through it, Sava shaped Serbian language, law, monasticism and identity for eight centuries.