January 14 | Saint Sava

Welcome, young history buffs and curious minds, to My Daily Saint, the podcast that digs deep into the incredible lives of the saints, those remarkable people who shaped history, and continue to inspire us today. Forget dusty old portraits and boring stories. Today, we have a story about a runaway prince, a father-son team-up that changed history, and a legacy so powerful that an army tried to burn it to the ground, literally. Today, let's start at the end. It's centuries after our saint has died.

The year is 1594, long after his death in 1233. The Ottoman Turks are in power, and they are frustrated. Why? Because the Serbian people are rebelling, and on their flags, they carry the icon of one man. So the Ottoman general does something drastic. He orders his soldiers to go to the monastery in Milajevo in southern Serbia. He orders them to dig up the grave. They exhumed the bones of the saint, carried them to a hill, and set them on fire. They thought that by burning his bones, they would crush the hope of the people.

But here's the spoiler alert. It didn't work. Today, a massive church stands on that exact holy site where the fire burned. You can burn bones, but you cannot burn a legacy. So, who was this guy? Who was so important that an army was afraid of his skeleton?

His name is Saint Sava, the first archbishop of Serbia. He was born in 1192, with the name Rostko Nenetich. And he wasn't just a regular kid. He was a prince. But young Prince Rostko wasn't interested in castles or armies. He wanted something different. He wanted holiness. He wanted to understand the deep mysteries of God. So Prince Rostko ran away from home. He fled to Mount Athos, a famous mountain peninsula in Greece filled with monasteries. It was there, amidst the cliffs in the sea, that the prince disappeared, and the monk emerged, now with a new name.

Sava. Sava wasn't content to just sit still. He was hungry for knowledge. He traveled to a Russian monastery, and then to a Greek one. Usually, when a kid runs away, the parents freak out. The dad comes storming in to drag them home, right? Well, Sava's father was King Stefan Nemanja, and eventually, the king did come to Mount Athos, but he didn't come to drag Sava home. The king joined him. That's right. The king left his throne to join his runaway son in the monastery.

Together, this father-son duo revived a monastery of Hilandar. The king eventually took vows and became a saint himself, Saint Simeon. Sava was a writer and a leader. He wrote the Corea Typicon, which is a set of rules for how to live the monastic life. But his biggest move was political and spiritual. He went to the patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church and persuaded him to do something unprecedented, promote Sava to become the very first archbishop of Serbia. This was huge. It meant independence.

And today, Saint Sava is celebrated today as the founder of the independent Serbian Orthodox Church. Saint Sava died of pneumonia in 1233. He was buried in Tronvo, before being moved to Miloseva, where those Ottoman Turks eventually found him. Think of Saint Sava's life like a candle. When the soldiers burned his bones, they thought they were blowing the candle out. But really, a legacy like Sava's is more like a forest fire. Trying to stomp it out only spreads the sparks further. By burning his bones, they only made his memory brighter, turning him into a symbol that couldn't be touched.

Sava is the patron saint of education, medicine, Serbian schools, and students. Don't forget to turn to him in prayer when you need help with an assignment, or when you're sick and need some comfort. Thank you for joining us on My Daily Saint. We look forward to sharing another incredible story of faith and courage with you tomorrow.