The House of Nemanjić
The founding dynasty of Serbian sanctity — Stefan Nemanja, who ended his reign as the monk Symeon on Athos, his wife Anastasia and his son Sava, and the kings, queens and archbishops of four generations after them. Few royal houses have given the Church so many saints.
No royal house in Orthodox history has given the Church so many saints. The Nemanjić dynasty ruled Serbia from the late twelfth century to the middle of the fourteenth, and across four generations its kings, queens, princes and archbishops were glorified — a lineage in which sanctity and government were understood to belong together.
It begins with Stefan Nemanja, the grand prince who united the Serbian lands and then abdicated to become the monk Symeon, joining his youngest son Sava on Mount Athos, where together they founded the monastery of Hilandar. Symeon's relics streamed myrrh; Sava became the first archbishop of an autocephalous Serbian Church and the father of its whole tradition. Their example set the pattern the house followed — Stephen the First-Crowned took the monastic habit before his death, as did his son Stephen Uroš I after him.
The generations that follow are the Serbian calendar in miniature: Vladislav who translated Sava's relics to Mileševa, Sava II who followed his uncle onto the archiepiscopal throne, Queen Helen who was mother to two kings, Dragutin who abdicated in penitence and lived as an ascetic, Milutin who built forty churches, and Stephen of Dečani, blinded by his father and later murdered by his own son, whose foundation at Dečani remains the greatest of Serbian monasteries.
Timeline5 momentsReadHide
- 1196A grand prince becomes a monkStefan Nemanja abdicates and takes the monastic name Symeon, joining his son Sava on Mount Athos.
- 1198Hilandar foundedSymeon and Sava establish the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on the Holy Mountain.
- 1219An autocephalous ChurchSava is consecrated first archbishop of the independent Serbian Church.
- 1282–1321The kingdom at its heightUnder Dragutin and Milutin the kingdom expands and its churches multiply; Milutin is remembered for some forty foundations.
- 1331DečaniStephen of Dečani raises the monastery that bears his name; he is murdered that same year at the hands of his son's party.