Today beautiful snowflakes clothed Belgrade in white clothes, giving him outwardly the inward beauty of his name (Beli grad, or Beograd – means the white city). Celebration clothes are not there without reason – today all schools and universities celebrate St. Sava’s Slava. Slava is serbian custom of celebrating patron saint, and St. Sava is patron saint of all educational institutions in Serbia.
Let us see who is that man whom we celebrate today. He is the source of unceasing inspiration to me. Why is that? Because he is my hero of renunciation in order to reach one’s own higher Ideal. He was born in royal family as a serbian Prince, in place called Ras then in medieval Serbia, in 1169 AD. His name was Rastko Nemanjić, and his father was a powerful King, Stefan Nemanja (actually he was Grand Župan but I am using the title King not to confuse the readers here, it is the same thing). Now you can easily imagine the difference between prince and ordinary people – he had wealth, and one day he was supposed to inherit power from his father and to rule the country (from his 15th year he was ruling actually over one bigger area in order to learn art of ruling state afterwards).
But when he was 16, three monks from Mount Athos (Holy Mountain on the Chalkidiki peninsula) visited serbian court. He talked with them and decided to flee away from the court to Athos and to become monk. To renounce all that awaited him and accept the life of obedience, celibacy and poverty. Why on the earth he did that? Why would anyone renounce such wealth, such wordly pleasures at the court – and there are wise men who say that in terms of passion money and beautiful women are next to nothing compared to political power. And our Rastko renounced future ruling of the country. He was very bright, he was not stupid (read his biography to see how diplomatically he was skilled later in life). My personal opinion is that he must have felt something that is far more fulfilling than all that what awaited him. Imagine for a moment that you are a prince and that someone tells you – renounce all that and I shall show you greater treasures? Would you renounce? I would not. Only someone who FEELS that ideal in heart can do such a thing. It is divine nostalgia.
What happened when King found out that his youngest son fled to Greece. When he found out that his beloved son went to monastery he was so desperate sent an ultimatum to Greece that he will occupy the country unless they bring him his son back. Serbia then was very powerful and this threat made statesmen tremble with fear, but Rastko told soldiers that they take rest that night and tomorrow he will go with them back to Serbia. However, during the night while soldiers were sleeping, Rastko became monk, and took the name Sava. He wrote letter to father to console him, and to persuade him not to send the army. It is interesting that later in life both King and Queen renounced world and became monks. Sava, and his father Stefan Nemanja (later St. Simeon) renewed Chilandar. Sava also became first serbian Archibishop 1219, and so he established the Independence of Archbishopic of the Serbian Church.
Can you remember anyone else who was prince and renounced all to search for higher Ideal. Of course, I am speaking of great prince Siddhartha Gautama, who in his 29th year left everything, his wife and little son too, in order to find way to cessation of suffering. After 6 years he became the Buddha and came back to his wife and son (whom he accepted as his disciples) but he never became wordly King, as St. Sava also never became wordly King. It is unknown to me that anyone else in history was in royal family and renounced all in order to become ascetic or monk (if you know someone however, please leave the comment). Therefore St. Sava and the Buddha will always be my heroes, to remind me that inner seeking in heart knows no outer compromise. We are speaking so much in our day-to-day life about sincerity, but when we read about lives of St. Sava and the Buddha we can see and feel what sincerity to one’s own heart ideals really is. Although compromise can be good in outer life, in the inner life it can never, never, never be good.
Ottoman Turks burned holy relics of St. Sava in Belgrade, Vračar Plateau, 1595, but they couldn’t destroy heaven glory of the saint. On that very place now is situated enormous St. Sava Cathedral (just golden-plated cross on top of it is 12 meters high, so I heard), which has 49 bells of all sizes (and music tones) that can play melody when ringing. Tone D1 is dedicated to great serbian Prime Minister Dr. Zoran Djindjić who was assassinated in 2003.
Few years ago I went to listen to one classical concert that happened to be on this day. So, before they started the concert, musicians sang and played the Hymn of Saint Sava. During the years of communist rule in Yugoslavia St. Sava was not praised, at least not publicly. But now spontanously all people in concert hall stood up when they heard beautiful notes of this hymn. And I am not ashamed to admit here that in that moment it was impossible to hold back tears in my eyes.
Da se srpska sva srca
S tobom ujedine,
Sunce mira, ljubavi
Da nam svima sine;
That serbian all hearts
Unite with you
Sun of peace, love
To shine on all of us;
