St. Sava of Serbia

Rastko, the youngest son of the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja, who ran away at seventeen to the Holy Mountain and was tonsured there; his father followed him and became the monk Simeon, and together they founded the Serbian monastery of Hilandar in 1198. In 1219 Sava obtained from the Patriarch at Nicaea the independence of the Serbian Church and was consecrated its first archbishop. He organised its dioceses, compiled its book of canon law and wrote its first literature, and reconciled his quarrelling brothers. He died in 1236 at Tarnovo. In 1594 the Ottomans burned his relics in Belgrade to break the people’s spirit; the great church of St Sava stands on the place. Feast: January 14.