SERBIA, HAPPY PATRON SAINT DAY - HOLY FATHER SAVA

Joy fills our hearts, dear spiritual children, when today on this great holiday we gathered in such large numbers in our modest catacombs to celebrate together our Father and Teacher SAINT SAVA, the one who glorified God all his life and whom God glorified more than anyone from our Serbian family. Today, the name of Saint Sava is the most common name on all world meridians, wherever Serbs live. He is called everywhere, songs are recited about him, he is talked about, he is thought of. And not only this year, but it has been like that every year for centuries. Today, Saint Sava is celebrated by the whole heaven and the whole earth. On earth, we gather around his name, we remember his feats, his efforts and his works that he left as a bequest to his family. And in heaven, around Saint Sava, God's well-wishers gather, and above all those from heavenly Serbia, headed by Saint Simeon Mirotočivi and Holy Prince Lazar, and glorify him as a great God's well-wisher.

Here on earth, many wonderful songs were sung in honor of Saint Sava, recited today by the mouths of the youngest descendants and admirers of Saint Sava, our children; many appropriate and academic lectures were held in his honor; books and volumes were written about Saint Sava and his work. And yet, not enough has been said, not everything has been said about that spiritual mountain to our progenitor, our Teacher and Enlightener. Saint Sava is a spiritual ocean, which Serbs have been examining and studying for centuries, and they cannot fathom it. The only thing they come to is the conviction and knowledge that he is completely unsearchable and unfathomable. No matter what we say or write about Saint Sava, we feel that there is always more of him beyond our words than we managed to capture with our stammering words.

And today and here we are stuttering something about Saint Sava, not to praise him, to glorify him, because he is glorified by God like no one from our generation, but we say this for our own sake, to at least mark and illuminate the path that our today's generation should go, so that we don't deviate from the right path and get lost in the labyrinth of paths and dead ends of various ecumenisms, globalisms and other contemporary delusions. Saint Sava is for us today, as well as for all previous generations, a necessary and irreplaceable guide and teacher of the "road that leads to life", as is sung in his troparion today. How was he able, how did the young Prince Rastko manage to fly like an eagle over all the obstacles, all the traps, all the temptations that this world, or rather - the devil, puts in front of every ungodly and God-loving soul? By that, and only by filling himself with the Lord Christ, as the Lord said in his holy Gospel: "Without me you can do nothing." Young Rastko worked hard all his life, fulfilling the commandments of Christ, creating holy Evangelical virtues, living by faith and following the Lord Christ by faith; with faith and love and prayer and fasting and meekness and humility and mercy and all other holy virtues, because he knew that only with the help of those holy virtues one follows the Lord Christ through this world to the next world. With this, the royal Rastko converted himself to Saint Sava, brought the whole Christ into his soul and his entire being, and then transferred and gifted it all to the Serbian land and the Serbian people.

The name of St. Sava, his grandiose work that he did and did in the Serbian people and for the Serbian people in all fields of national existence, is inseparable and inconceivable separated from his Christified personality, which he built and built in many laborious feats and prayers on the Holy Mountain. Everything that Sava acquired there, all the grace of Christ that he drew from the Hilandar monastery, he, and himself, wove all this into every pore of the life of the Serbian people of his time, but also of all subsequent centuries until today. The benevolent radiation of his holy personality, his life, and work have followed our people through the centuries, for over eight hundred years. His light radiated to us in the darkness of slavery, his hand guided us when we were left without a state and political leadership, his wisdom advised us what to do whenever we were in doubt and at a historical crossroads. We really need that wisdom even today, when our nation is crucified between the East and the West, instead of being, as Saint Bishop Nikolaj said, above the East and the West. Only thanks to the help of Saint Sava, on the one hand, and the willingness of the Serbs to follow and listen to him as their spiritual father, teacher, and educator, on the other hand, we have survived this historical whirlwind until today. Even today, when, for the umpteenth time, we are again at the crossroads and facing a historic decision, we see our survival only in faithfully following the path that Saint Sava traveled and bequeathed to us, especially when it comes to safeguarding the holy faith of the Orthodox and life according to her. Outside of this path, everything else is detours and pathlessness, outside of his spirit, everything else is evil spirits, outside of his enlightenment, everything else is obscurity. That is why Saint Bishop Nikolaj was right when he told the Serbs with his enlightened mind

"Blessed is the mother who gave birth to Sava,

and Serbs while Sava leads them".

Therefore, let's not look for another leader, no matter who he is and no matter what his name is. Let's follow Saint Sava today. Because guided only by him, we will remain and survive both as Orthodox and as people of Saint Sava (svetosavci), just as our glorious and holy ancestors were throughout history. Many troubles in recent years have pressed and still press our nation as a whole, especially that of our holy Kosovo and Metohija. To that external pressure, suffering, and troubles, in recent times has been added suffering for the true faith, the faith that Saint Sava preached and left to us, which, alas, today many abandon and spoil, even those who are called to guard and defend it from various heresies and heretics, whose goal is the destruction of holy Orthodoxy. Our Serbian Orthodox Church has been and remains a people's church since Saint Sava, which has never abandoned or forgotten its people but has always been with them in good times and bad until today. And today? Where is the ship of the Church of Saint Sava sailing? Let's look at it and figure it out in time because tomorrow may already be too late. Constantly and everywhere in those moods of ours, we felt that the hand of Saint Sava was guiding us, we felt that his spirit encouraged us. Even today, may his gentle and endearing words ring in our ears:

"Come children, listen to me,

I will teach you the fear of the Lord,

I'll show you how it should be done,

in which there is destruction, in which there is salvation".

It is difficult to say what Saint Sava is the greatest in. He has no one to compare with. In every segment of his life, in every part of his life, he is unsurpassed and incomparable. Its measure is immeasurable. His vision – unattainability. To talk about every segment of his life and work would require numerous volumes of books, even entire libraries. They really do exist, they have been written for centuries and are being written continuously. And yet, never tell everything about Saint Sava. He surpasses every human word. He is wider than any human thought. Because he filled himself with the indescribable and unsearchable Lord Jesus Christ. The life of Saint Sava, like the life of every saint, is the repeated life of the Lord Jesus Christ. Each of them could repeat and apply to themselves the words of the holy apostle Paul: "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2, 20).

Today, we, brothers and sisters, and dear children, like Saint Prince Lazar, are faced with the fateful question, of who will we please the empire. Will our path in future generations be the path of Saint Sava, Saint Bishop Nikolaj, Venerable Justin Ćelijski, the path that leads to eternal life, or will we take the path of ecumenism, papism, innovation,... building a new faith and church for ourselves. Only the path of Saint Sava could be of great benefit to us today if we were all ready to follow his example and words in the service of God and the people, and to get rid of our selfish, personal, or narrow-party interests.

That is the message and lesson of Saint Sava to all of us on this wonderful and glorious holiday of his, a message and lesson that we need today more than ever before, because the position of our people in Kosovo and Metohija, as well as the position of our Motherland as a whole, is more difficult. more unfavorable today than ever before. That is why we need the help and wisdom of Saint Sava so much, and we pray to him from the bottom of our hearts and cry out:

"Let us all live in harmony,

Saint Savo help us"!

Amen!

Bishop Artemije (1935-2020) - Epistle of Saint Sava 2016