Lives of the Serbian Saints

tr. Yanich and Hankey, 1921

4. The Life of Our Holy Father Arseni, Serbian Archbishop

The year and the place in which this great man of our Church was born are not known to us, for he appeared in our fatherland when he was already full grown. Only one thing is certain, that he was the son of good parents, and that Sirmie was their country, where to this day Orthodox Serbians live. This saint, feeling in his heart a secret longing for the spiritual life and rule, and choosing the eternal rather than the transitory, the godly rather than the vain, desired to climb by the ladder of the spiritual exercises and the Gospel virtues. Wherefore, with warm prayers he prepared himself for the service of the Lord God and His Church, and going to the monastery, was made monk. When he heard tell of the holy Sava, the first Serbian archbishop, how he enlightened the Serbian country with his teaching and baptism, instructed the faithful in patience and repentance, and ministered forgiveness of their sins, he himself also, enlightened with grace, came to him as on wings. For he desired to be near the man of God, who was as an apostle, and learn how he might rise from earthly to heavenly things, from corruption to incorruption, from the things of men to the things of God. So when he came to the monastery Zicha, where was the archbishop’s throne of St. Sava, he begged some of the brothers to tell the saint, and he was received lovingly by that renowned man.

To him, desiring the divine love and wisdom, a wide field was opened out—help, O Lord, the teacher who attempts the spiritual exercises—and the young disciple did not shrink from work, but he rendered glad obedience to “the yoke that is easy,” overcoming its manifold temptations one by one with full obedience and sacrifice.

When he had spent long time in these spiritual exercises with gladness and constancy and had increased in spiritual stature, the saint made him ecclesiarch¹ in the Church of the Ascension of our Saviour. At this appointment to the service of the Church Arseni was greatly rejoiced, for he saw in it a sign of the favour of the archbishop and the fatherly love of his great teacher. He increased more and more in zeal, praying secretly to Jesus the Lord, who gave him grace, and he confessed to Him his weakness, beseeching Him to give him counsel, to strengthen him for His service, and to lead him by His Holy Spirit to do the work that was given him to do. Through such prayers he grew strong in hope and the grace of the Holy Ghost and the fear of God: for many years he carried out his duties as ecclesiarch in a godly way, living a good life with humility and purity of soul. When Archbishop Sava saw this he made him higumen of the glorious monastery of Zicha, giving into his charge all the buildings within the church and without. This was done before the first voyage of St. Sava to Jerusalem, to the end that while he was away the good rule of the holy house might not slacken.

When St. Sava returned from the Holy Places to his monastery he found all things ruled aright and in good condition, so that he was very glad. Now at this time their Hungarian neighbour, who was ever greedy for the plunder of foreign lands, had taken possession of some part of the Serbian land near the border by force of arms, through his repeated invasions of that country. St. Sava, therefore, though he hoped that the Hungarian attacks would be some time beaten off and the uninvited guest sent back to his own country, determined to be ready for any future chance, and ordered the higumen Arseni to go a little into the Serbian country to the south and find another safe place where the Serbian archbishopric might be set up. Arseni, obedient as ever to his lord, went where he was bidden and after looking at many different places, chose out one in the country of Hvostom, which was afterwards called Metohia. And there, at the foot of the mountains, amid the rocks and caves, he signified that the church should be built, with the cells which it would need, and returning told the saint of the good place he had found. Then the holy archbishop gave orders for the building of the church of the holy Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul. The new monastery was called Pech, after the peshcher (caves) in that place, and the rocks on the east side of the church, and afterwards it became the Serbian patriarchal see during the reign of Stephen Dushan, the Serbian tsar.

And now that the holy Sava had been passing to and fro through his dioceses with great zeal for many years, teaching all men great and small, and now that he could give glory to God because He had made for his country an archbishop, bishops, monks and voievodes, and praise Him for that He had adorned his fatherland with great catholic churches, with worthy monasteries well ruled and governed, he thought to lay aside the archbishop’s authority and to end his life in a strange land, for he desired not the praise of men. Wherefore he determined to go a second time on pilgrimage, and he called to him and consecrated in his place the higumen Arseni, because he knew him for a godly man who lived in the fear of the Lord and kept His commandments, a just man and thinking no evil. So he laid all his authority on the holy Arseni in the monastery Zicha. He celebrated the Liturgy, and called him to be his successor before all the bishops and in the presence of King Vladislav himself.

To the honour of St. Arseni it must be told that he at first refused, holding himself not worthy of such a dignity, nor strong enough to bear such a burden with which were united such great and difficult duties. But this profession of unworthiness was only a sign of his great meekness; and when St. Sava insisted he finally gave his consent and took the throne of the archbishop of the Serbian country. When all this was so well ended, St. Sava started on his long journey, and St. Arseni remained to rule that Church and vineyard of the Lord to which he had been appointed. The spiritual arm fell on no one oppressively, but lightly and justly. He was never remiss in doing good and giving alms, but followed the example of his great and blessed predecessor in both these duties. He both instructed the people in sermons and corrected them by his God-like life. Good customs he introduced and preserved: bad customs he rooted up by his sanctity and patience. Sinners he called to repentance and newness of life, chastening them with good counsel, and praying for them that they might return out of their evil ways. The lost and those who had given heart and mind to other things he corrected with the words of truth and strong meat of the Gospels, giving himself no rest till they had come back to the wisdom of righteousness with full consent.

While St. Arseni was engaged upon these labours in the Church of the Living God, there came to him the embassy of the blessed Sava from Turnovo, the capital of the Bulgarian state, bringing with them letters from the saint and gifts from the Serbian churches, but also the sad tidings that St. Sava was hardly yet alive in that town. Other messengers arrived a short while after, bearing the news of the short illness and death of the saint. Then all the Serbian land mourned for him. Behold how the Lord fulfilled the desire of St. Sava to die in a strange land! When the next year came the body of the saint still lay in Turnovo, and the honoured and blessed Archbishop Arseni went unto the godly King Vladislav and spoke thus: “It is not right in the eyes of God or man to leave our father, whom Jesus gave to us—that apostle and teacher who toiled and laboured so well, adorning the Serbian country with churches and a crowned king, with an archbishop and bishops, and with all the rules and canon law of Orthodoxy—to leave the body of that father outside the frontiers of his fatherland and throne. I beseech thee, make it thy care to have his relics brought back hither to his fatherland.” This petition was very pleasing to King Vladislav, and he wrote once and twice to his wife’s father the Bulgarian tsar, Asen, demanding from him the body of his uncle. To his first letter the tsar made answer: “If the body of St. Sava lay here unhonoured and uncared for, you would have cause to make this request. But since it lies in peace and is kept safe among us as surely as though it lay with you, why trouble ye the saint and yourselves?” To the second letter he made answer: “Since it pleased the Lord that the saint should die here, trusting in Christ, who am I to oppose the will of the Lord and to shake the tomb and relics of holy Sava, who left no testamentary direction about any such change? In vain you ask this of me, for I cannot grant it. Seek not to obtain it by force, for the patriarch and the nobles and all the city will be opposed to you.” But King Vladislav could no longer bear the reproaches of his people; and he feared lest he should grieve the Lord if the body of St. Sava remained in a strange country. So he took the road himself, many of his nobles, bishops and higumens bearing him company, and the Bulgarian king yielded, and gave up the body of his uncle. Vladislav bade his men set to work with all speed lest the Bulgarian tsar should change his mind—which indeed came to pass. But it was then too late, for the remains of holy Sava were brought away without mischance by our people, so that when Vladislav came up to them on the road he rejoiced greatly. Now, as they drew near the Serbian territory there came to meet the holy remains the Archbishop Arseni with his whole synod and many of the nobles, and did reverence as was meet to the holy relics, and kissed them, and brought them with singing of psalms and hymns to the monastery Mileshevo, which King Vladislav had built. And there in the great Church of the Ascension of our Lord the sarcophagus was placed in a worthy tomb which Vladislav had himself made ready.

The saint, Arseni, performed all the rites in memory of his teacher and benefactor never to be forgotten, and then went back to Zicha. But stricken in years and enfeebled by sorrow for holy Sava who lay dead in the Lord, he knew well that his own hour drew near. Wherefore, while he still had the strength, he raised up in his place Sava II to be archbishop of the Serbian land. Bent and shrunken by a long and weary illness he received the Holy Sacrament and gave up his soul to God on the twenty-eighth day of October, and was buried in the Pech Church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, after ruling the Serbian country for thirty years.

Through his prayers, grant us, Christ Jesus, to come with peaceful soul and pure conscience to the quiet refuge of Thy Kingdom. Amen.

Notes

A kind of “precentor.” This church was at Zicha.