'A Goodness Which Surpasses Understanding'—St Sava of Serbia

Today the Serbian Church commemorates St Sava, Archbishop of the Serbs (1169-1236). Although I’ve yet to to see Serbia, I’ve been blessed to make a pilgrimage to the monastery he founded on the Holy Mountain of Athos, Hilandar, as well as to the ‘House of Silence’ in Karyes, which is attached to the monastery, and was able to venerate the two icons that St Sava brought back from the Mar Sabas monastery in the Holy Land. I also had the great blessing to be at Hilandar for the feastday of St Sava’s father, St Symeon (Nemanja).

One of the more interesting pieces of literature connected with St Sava is a ‘brief but intricate poem’ by an otherwise anonymous monk of Hilandar named ‘Silouan’, which Thomas Butler has called ‘a rare jewel in medieval Serbian literature’ (Thomas Butler, ed. and trans., Monumenta Serbo-Croatica: A Bilingual Anthology of Serbian and Croatian Texts from the 12th to the 19th Century [Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic, 1980], p. 67). The poem first appears in a 15th-c. manuscript from Holy Trinity Monastery in Plevlja, and was printed in 1536-38 in a praznični minej, or ‘festal menaion’. It was based on the Byzantine twelve-syllable, with a caesura after the first seven syllables (Butler, p. 67). Actually, if one pays attention to the caesuras, it occasionally seems to have an alliteration between the hemistichs reminiscent of Old English poetry. Here is the text, as given by Butler (p. 69):

Слави отбегнув, славу обрете, Саво,
Тамо отјуду слава јави се роду.
Рода светлост вери светлост презре,
Тем же роду светило јави се всему.
Ума висота сана висоту сврже,
Тем убо ума више доброту стиже.
Слова слави Саве сплете Силуан.

Fleeing glory, you found glory, Sava,
There whence glory appeared to your people.
The light of faith for your people, you scorned the light,
And thereby you appeared as a beacon to all your people.
Loftiness of intelligence superseded loftiness of position,
Thereby achieving a virtue beyond intelligence.
Siluan composed these words of praise to Sava.

And here is the translation published by Fr Mateja Matejić and Dragan Milivojević in An Anthology of Medieval Serbian Literature in English (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1978), p. 70:

By escaping from glory
you have found glory, O Sava,
there, whence came glory to the nation.
You have preferred the light of faith
to the light of the [mundane] kingdom,
and thereby illumination came to the whole nation.
Superiority of mind overshadowed supremacy of rank,
thereby you achieved in actuality a goodness
which surpasses understanding.

These words of praise to Sava
were put together by Siluan.

Fr Matejić and Milivojević give the textual sources as follows:

Church Slavonic text (manuscript): Microfilms of Hilandar Manuscripts at the Main Library of Ohio State University, Columbus, OH: #249; #250; #427.

Church Slavonic text published in: Ćorivić, Vladimir, ‘Siloan i Danilo II’, Glas Srpske kraljevske akademije, cxxxvi, drugi razred, 72, (Sremski Karlovci, 1928). (Fr Matejić & Milivojevic, p. 70)

One can read about St Sava in the Prologue for today and in Bulgakov’s Handbook for Sunday, 12 January, his feastday in the Russian Church, and his writings are available in Serbian here. There is a wonderful biography of St Sava written by a 20th-c. Serbian Saint—The Life of St Sava, by St Nicholas (Velimirović) (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 1989). One can purchase it here, among other places. I no longer have a copy, as I gave mine to Max Cavalera to read on tour. Finally, Fr Milovan has, naturally, been posting about St Sava lately.

As a final aside, I once had the pleasure of corresponding with Thomas Butler, who, when I contacted him with a question or two, got more excited about my project than even I was. Unfortunately, I don't think he's working in old Slavic literature anymore, but I do hope he's well this St Sava's day.

[Update: I tried to view this post on St Sava's day and was already thinking of linking to it here, but for some reason it wouldn't load. Anyway, here is an interesting St Sava's day post from my friend, Fr Deacon Gregory Edwards—who currently lives with his wife in my former apartment in Thessaloniki.]