Serbia in Light and Darkness | Page 8

Nemanja, the founder of a dynasty which
ruled in Serbia for nearly 300 years, had heard tales and songs about
the English king with the lion's heart, and had helped the same cause,
the cause of the Crusades, very much. His son, Saint Sava, organised
the Christian Church wonderfully, and wonderfully he inspired the
educational and scholarly work in the state created by his father. This
Saint Sava, the Archbishop of Serbia, after he had travelled all over
Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria, preaching the Gospel of the Son of God,

died in Bulgaria. His body was transferred to and buried in a monastery
in Herzegovina. Afterwards, in times of national hardships and slavery,
great pilgrimages took place to the grave of the Saint, which became
the comforting and inspiring centre for the oppressed nation; the Turks
destroyed the tomb, carried the body over to Belgrade and burnt it, in
order to lessen the Serbian national and religious enthusiasm. The
result was just the contrary. On the very same place where Saint Sava's
body was burnt there is now a Saint Sava's chapel; close to this chapel a
new Saint Sava's seminary is to be erected, and also Saint Sava's
cathedral of Belgrade. And over all there is an acknowledged protection
of Saint Sava by all the Serbian churches and schools, and a unifying
spirit of Saint Sava for all the Serbian nation.
Saint Sava's belief was the same as the belief of Saint Patrick and Saint
Augustine. His hopes were the same as theirs too. He believed in the
one saving Gospel of Christ, as they did. He hoped men could be
educated by this divine Gospel, to be heroic in suffering and pure and
holy in the enjoyments of life, just as the great saints of this island
doubtless hoped and worked.
THE BELIEF AND HOPES OF THE SERBIAN KINGS
represented almost throughout our history the model of the true
religious spirit and of the hopeful optimism of the nation. That can be
said especially for the kings since Saint Sava's time until the definite
conquest of Serbia by the Sultans, i.e. since Richard and John's time
until the time of the Black Prince and Wycliffe, and from the Black
Prince and Wycliffe till the end of the Wars of the Roses in England.
Our kings did what all the kings in the world do; they fought and ruled,
they ate and drank, and danced and played, and still the majority of
them took monastic vows and died in solitude and asceticism, and a
great part of them were recognised by the people as saints and invoked
by the oppressed in the dark times as the advocates of national justice,
before God. They built beautiful churches and monasteries in the towns
and forests. They strove always to build the "Houses of God" more
solid and more costly than their own houses. Their castles and palaces
they built to their own glory, and their pleasures no longer exist, but the

churches they built to the glory of God still exist. In these churches our
pious kings of old prayed; in these churches afterwards our hard
oppressed people wept during the time of slavery; in these "Houses of
God" the fanatic Turks enclosed their cattle, their goats and sheep, their
horses and donkeys, thus abasing and ridiculing our sanctuaries. But
the more these sanctuaries have been abased and ridiculed by the
enemy, the more they have been respected and adored by the people.
We Serbs cannot complain that our Middle Ages were as dark as the
people in Europe are accustomed to represent their own. During the
three hundred years of the reign of Neniania's dynasty not one of our
kings was killed. The importance of this fact only the historian can
understand who knows well the history of our neighbours, the
Byzantines and Venetians of that time, who in many other respects had
been our teachers. We learnt many useful as well as perilous things
from them, but we did not learn their art of poisoning kings, of
torturing them, suffocating them, making them blind, cutting out their
tongues, etc. It is only in modern times that we committed the great
sins of the Middle Ages, namely, killing our kings and making civil
wars. During the last hundred years we killed only three of our kings:
Karageorge, Michael and Alexander. In modern times three have been
killed in a hundred years, and in the Middle Ages not one in three
hundred years!--a fact as unusual as curious. But you should remember
that our modern times in Serbia began after five hundred years of a
bloody slavery and dark education under Turkish tyranny.
I mention our great sins not in order to excuse but to accuse my people.
I will not even accuse