The Life of St. Sava

St Sava is the best known and much loved Serbian saint. Born in 1173, as a young man he left the home of his father, the King of Serbia, went to Mount Athos, became a monk and founder of the great monastic house of Hilandar. In 1219 he was appointed the first archbishop of the newly organized autocephalous Serbian church. He died in 1236 and was subsequently canonized as the spiritual “enlightener” of the Serbian Church.

Bishop Nicholai writes about St Sava in a simple, moving and clear manner. He uses his sources to convey the atmosphere and history of the time. Often brief chapters are accompanied by the Bishop’s meditations on the meaning of particular events in the life of the saint. St Sava, he writes, “wanted only through the nationally organized church to make his people worthy members of the universal Orthodox family of Christ. He himself was permeated with the spirit of ecumenical Christianity. As such, he felt at home in every Orthodox community of every race and language.”

Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich, the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Zicha who lived from 1880 to 1956, was the most influential and the most productive figure in Serbian church life in this century. In 1946, after spending the war years in the Dachau concentration camp, he came to the United States and died in 1956.