Lives of the Serbian Saints

tr. Yanich and Hankey, 1921

7. The Life of the Saint and Great Martyr, Stephen Dechanski

From the life of the saintly and blessed Milutin we know that Stephen Dechanski, the Serbian Job, was the first-born son of Milutin and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of the Hungarian king. He passed the years of his youth at the court of his parents in the study of his own language and the writings of his people and being instructed in the Holy Scriptures. His mind, enlarged by study, he grew strong in the Orthodox Faith, which preserved his soul from terrible heresy and led him straight towards everlasting life with Our Saviour Jesus Christ. For no mortal man can tell what temptations the chances of life will bring to him one day; nor is it possible to find a better medicine to fight against these than the doctrine of the Spirit, Who speaks in the Word of the Lord. Therefore the saint was zealous to strengthen his heart, by the teachings of that Holy Spirit Who gives understanding to those who are obedient to Him.

The fruit of this doctrine and training soon showed itself, for when the needs of the state required peace with Nogyi, chief of the Tartars, and that man demanded from King Milutin his son as hostage, the young Stephen, heir to the throne, went willingly, though it was clear that his way was full of danger. Being obedient, therefore, to his father’s will, he was willing to go, giving himself heart and soul to the Lord, who looks upon His people. And his hope was not vain; for after some years he made friends with one of the Tartar nobles, Enirizaki, who sent him and his companions to a place whence he could come back safely to his father. When the king saw him come back safe and sound, he gave thanks to the Lord, saying: “This my son is saved from the hands of sinners by the right hand of the Lord Most High.”

After a short time his parents made a marriage for him with the daughter of the Bulgarian king Smilatz, and his father gave him as his portion a good part of the state, namely the country of Zeta, where the first-born and heir to the throne long time lived with his nobles. But when, through the marriage of King Milutin to Simonide, the son Constantine was born, Satan, quick to do evil, began to sow discord concerning the inheritance of the Serbian throne. Stephen, the first-born, was worthy to come to the throne after the death of his father, but Simonide desired this good fortune for her son Constantine. This her purpose was no secret to Stephen, for she spoke evil against him openly and hated him, striving to anger his father against his eldest son, so that he might refuse him the throne. Now the nobles and the chief men were against her in this plot, for they feared lest, when Constantine came to the throne, the power of the Greeks should become over great in the Serbian country. While things were in this pass they say that the party which favoured Stephen gathered an army together and forced him to demand the throne of his father, for they desired to forestall the plot of the queen. But King Milutin vanquished his son with his army and took him as he fled, and gave orders that he be bound and blinded with red-hot irons, and sent him to Constantinople to be shut up in prison.

The commands of his father were carried out and Stephen was borne away by a guard, together with his children Dushan and Dushitzya. On the way, as they passed over Ovchepole, he was blinded with red-hot irons. In that same night there came to him St. Nicholas in a dream and said to him: “Be not afraid, for your eyes are in my hand”; and from that time Stephen felt no small lightening of his sickness. When he came to Constantinople he was received with mercy by the Emperor Andronicus, who took him at first into the imperial palace, giving to him all he stood in need of, and afterwards put him in the monastery Pantokrator. All these things, exile and imprisonment, blindness and captivity, though very bitter, the godly Stephen endured with patience, neither protesting nor repining, but praising the Lord who had given him such a wound. For this his meekness and patience the Emperor Andronicus loved him and went often to him, and was kind to him, because he perceived in him a man of great spirit.

Now in the fifth year of his captivity it chanced that the saint was in church on the feast of the saint and wonder-maker Nicholas. While he sat with the rest and listened to the reading of the life of the holy man of God, being very weary, he fell asleep: and behold, he saw again in a dream that godly man who had appeared to him on the way in Ovchepole, speaking to him on this wise: “That which was promised to thee before, thou shalt now receive. He who sent me to thee formerly with a promise, sends me again bearing this message, that thou shalt soon receive thy sight once more.” By the will of the Holy Lord, so it came about and he began to see; yet he told no man of this mercy of the Lord, save the Emperor Andronicus, who counselled him that he should not appear with open eyes, lest the evil should happen to him again. Wherefore Stephen wisely kept secret this opening of his eyes until the day when the Lord should will that he return and be made king.

At this time the Emperor Andronicus was hard pressed and asked help of Milutin against the Turks, who threatened his country. To his embassy he added the higumen of the monastery Pantokrator. When they came to Prizren, King Milutin called this godly higumen aside and questioned him concerning his son Stephen. He made answer wisely and said: “O king, you ask news of an unhappy man, a second Job. Know then that the lowliness of his heart sets him above the glory of men. And when you come to be of the same mind with me, thy intercessor, in this good work, take thy son Stephen back, who through his long suffering is made good and is without reproach.” The story goes on thus: In the seventh year the prisoner, St. Stephen, yet bearing his difficult lot with patience, wrote a letter to the Holy Mountain to the godly Daniel, praying him on this wise: “Cause thy council of most reverent fathers of the Holy Mountain to make intercession for me to my lord and father, beseeching him that he be not enraged with me always, lest I die in this strange land.” Now this reverend father, after taking counsel with the brethren, sent to Prizren some of the godly old men, giving them a letter for the honoured Archbishop Nikodim concerning this matter. And in good time these reverend fathers of the Holy Mountain came to the godly Milutin, being brought to him by the Archbishop Nikodim, and spoke softly with him. Then the heart of Milutin was softened, and because no long time since there had come the higumen from the monastery Pantokrator in Constantinople with this prayer, and now also these fathers brought to him the intercession of the council for mercy and the restoration of his son, he yielded, and said to them: “Your prayer shall be granted. What you have asked for my son, shall be my will also.” Then they gave him thanks and went their way.

So, after that, the godly King Milutin sent a messenger to his father-in-law, the Emperor Andronicus, asking him to release his son. At this message the emperor rejoiced greatly, and sent away the prisoner in peace, commanding the guard to give all honour to the king’s son.

After many days’ voyage came Stephen with great joy to the town of Prizren. When he came before his father with his son Dushano—for Dushitza had died in Constantinople—he knelt down with his eyes bound up and spoke thus: “Father, I confess my sin. I do not deny what thou knowest to be true. But I know also that thou art merciful, and I pray thee forgive me, thy son, and do not hate thy child.” Then his father bowed down to him and kissed him and forgave him that which he had done for always. After this he gave to him a part of the country of Bodimlya for his support, whither Stephen went, leaving his son Stephen Dushan with his grandfather.

It came to pass after three years that his father, the godly King Milutin, died, and there came messengers to Stephen both to bring the sad tidings of the death of his father and to pray him to take the sceptre of the kingdom. He did not believe the words of these, for he feared some plot or crafty design. But when he knew the truth more perfectly he came before the nobles and the people assembled, and taking the bandage from his eyes he said: “Beloved brothers and comrades, hearken to me. Our Lord has had mercy upon me; for whereas you knew me blind, behold now I see. Praise all of you the great and merciful Lord with me.” And all the assembly, seeing with their eyes what they had heard with their ears, bowed low before their lawful king. When Stephen was thus raised to the throne, since he knew that his father, Stephen Urosh, was beloved of his people, he took for his own name also Urosh, and was called Stephen Urosh, which good name he proved by giving presents to the Holy Church and to the poorest of his subjects.

But Constantine, son of King Milutin and Simonide, plotted against the throne of his brother Stephen Urosh, and having obtained soldiers from the neighbouring peoples, he commanded him to leave the throne, saying that it was not meet that a blind beggar should rule the state. Stephen then, with soldiers of his own people, went first to Pech, the Serbian archbishop’s seat; and there the holy Nikodim came to meet him and crowned him king of the Serbian state in the church. Thus, crowned head of the kingdom, he went to war. When the two armies met the holy King Stephen did not desire to join battle forthwith, but, full of love towards his brother and meekness of heart, he wrote a letter to Constantine in these words: “Stephen Urosh, by the grace of God king and heir to his father’s dominions, being firmly purposed to rule his people in the fear of God, to his beloved brother Constantine, greetings and joy in the Lord. Put far from thee thy desire to come with a foreign people to make war on thine own countrymen; but let us meet one another, and thou shalt be second in my kingdom, for the land is great enough for me and thee to live. I am not Cain who slew his brother, but Joseph who loved him, and in his words I speak to thee. Fear not, for I am from the Lord. You prepared evil for me, but the Lord has given me good as you now see.” When Constantine had read this letter he gave orders straightway that the Serbian army be attacked. The battle was joined and the army of St. Stephen was victorious, and Constantine was not only defeated but himself slain.

No sooner had he made an end of this first rebel than a second arose, Vladislav, the first-born son of Dragutin. He demanded the throne by right of his father, but could not take it by force, for Stephen overcame him, and being driven out he went to Sirmie, and there died.

So when Stephen had set peace about his throne he began to do works good and pleasing to God. He gave alms to the poor, built churches, sent rich presents to the holy monasteries in Alexandria and Mount Sinai, in Jerusalem and Palestine, in the Holy Mountain and Thessaly and Constantinople. Especially he sent gifts to the monastery of Pantokrator in Constantinople, where he had been imprisoned seven years. For as he had obtained his freedom by the intervention of the clergy, so, as a token of his thanks, he greatly reverenced the bishops and priests. And because he knew that he was debtor to the holy wonder-maker Nicholas, he ordered a silver altar to be made, with eikons also, and gave it to the church of that saint in Bari. Afterwards he overcame the Hungarian and the Bulgarian kings and the Greek emperor, who were envious of the glory of King Stephen Urosh III, and rose against him to destroy the state. So by the help of the Lord the blessed king was victorious, and desired to repay his debt to the Lord God by building a splendid church in the midst of his fatherland. Wherefore he set forth with Archbishop Daniel, who had succeeded Nikodim, to seek a good place for this church. And they found it on the river Bistretza in the country of Hvostom, and himself with his own hand laid the first stone for the foundation of the church in the name of the Lord God Almighty and in honour of the Ascension of the Lord, in the place called Dechany; wherefore the monastery was called Visoki Dechany (high Dechany). When the building was done the holy king adorned it within with gold and silver and all the vessels it needed most splendid.

Thus labouring in the Lord and minding to live the days of his old age in peace, he endured such a sorrow as he never thought to come to him. In these days he had set apart for quietness trouble came upon him, and he received a wound more terrible than his captivity in Constantinople, for he was utterly overwhelmed, forgotten of all his own, and fell from his throne in that very moment when he thought himself secure. It grieves the heart to hear tell of such things as came upon the saint in his great old age through no fault of his own.

Now his first-born son, Stephen Dushan, won great renown in battle against the Bulgarians and Greeks. By the love of his father he was called the younger king for his bravery, and he was given a country of his own. But yielding to the counsel of the nobles who followed him, he foolishly rose against his father to take from him the throne and the state by force, fearing lest his father should give it to the son of his second marriage. So then he rebelled against him, and the godly King Stephen took horse and fled with some few of his nobles to the town Petrich, not far from Narodimlya. There the soldiers of his son overtook him and surrounded the town and made him prisoner. Stephen Dushan, after taking counsel with his nobles, put him in prison in the glorious town of Zvechan, where he died an unnatural death in the year 1336. His holy body was brought by his son Stephen Dushan to the monastery of Visoki Dechany, and there it rests in peace to this day in the church of God Almighty, to Whose care we commit ourselves, praying peace for ourselves and our fatherland and for our soul’s salvation. Amen.

Notes

King of Serbia, 1321–1331.