Serbia
About this date: Serbia is a regional label, not a single city. The 1219 milestone concerns an autocephalous archbishopric, not the first arrival of Christianity or the later elevation to a patriarchate.
The Serbian Church received autocephalous organization in 1219, with Sava consecrated as its first archbishop and its headquarters at Žiča. Serbian church life also developed through monasteries such as Studenica, founded by Stefan Nemanja, and Hilandar. Sava's writings include the Studenica Typikon and a synthesis of Byzantine church and civil law known as the Nomocanon.
Historical context
The geography crosses modern national borders: Hilandar is on Mount Athos, while Studenica and Žiča are in Serbia. Historical ecclesiastical jurisdiction and present state boundaries are not interchangeable.
Key points
- Studenica's foundation in the late twelfth century, Hilandar's renewal in 1198, and Sava's consecration in 1219 are separate events.
- Sava's Studenica Typikon concerns the governance of a monastery. Its independence clause is not itself the act granting ecclesiastical autocephaly.
- Hilandar makes the relationship with Mount Athos concrete: people, rules, books, and practices moved between the peninsula and Serbian lands.
Primary sources
The monastery publishes this instruction from chapter XII:
Sava's Studenica Typikon prescribes the monastery's independence; this provision concerns monastic governance, rather than the Serbian Church's later autocephaly.
this holy monastery be independent
Passage context and translation
Sava's rule governs Studenica's monastic community and autonomy. Its instruction about a monastery is not the 1219 act establishing the Serbian Church's autocephaly.
Before the excerpt
the Ruler of All that
After the excerpt
among all the governing ones