The Assembly of the Enlighteners and Teachers of Serbia.

Commemorated August 30 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

On this day are commemorated, not all the saints of Serbia in general, but several archbishops and patriarchs:

St Sava, the first Archbishop of Serbia, called equal to the apostles.

Arsenius, St Sava's successor, a great hierarch and wonderworker.

Sava II, son of King Stephen the First-Crowned, who lived a long time in Jerusalem and was called 'like to Moses in meekness'.

Nicodemus, who lived in asceticism on the Holy Mountain, and was abbot of Hilandar and archbishop of 'all the Serbian and maritime lands'.

Joannicius, archbishop and then, from 1346, patriarch, who died in 1349.

Ephraim, an ascetic, chosen against his will as patriarch in the time of Prince Lazar, in 1376. He crowned Lazar and then renounced the patriarchal throne and withdrew into solitude.

Spiridon, Ephraim's successor, who died in 1388.

Macarius, who restored many old foundations, printed Church books in Skadar, Venice, Belgrade and other places, built the famous refectory in the monastery at Pec, did much for the advancement of the Church with the help of his brother, Mehmed Sokolovic, and entered into rest in 1574.

Gabriel, by birth a nobleman of the Rajic family, who took part in the Moscow Council under Patriarch Nikhon, because of which he was tortured by the Turks for treason and hanged in 1656.

As well as these, there are also commemorated Eustace, Jacob, Danilo, Sava III, Gregory, John, Maxim and Nikhon. Many of them lived the ascetic life on the Holy Mountain, and all were 'gentle and faithful servants, good labourers in the Lord's vineyard'.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK