The Diversity of Sacred Lands in Europe - IUCN

Muslim populations of the region, who
are living together harmoniously?
Visitors and pilgrims who come to the
monastery attend religious services.
Some of them walk through the canyon,
and climb a path up to the hermitage
of St Sava, where they wash their
face and drink the holy water.
Spiritual values
The ethnical and cultural identity of the
population of the local communities in
the Raska region is marked by Svetosavlje
(Saintsavaism). Svetosavlje’s
ethic implies a historical normative
pattern of social behaviour and collective
effort of the Serbs as Orthodox
Christians that imbues all areas of human
practice (Mitrovic, 1995).
St Sava spiritually united the Serbs and
that feeling still persists despite a number
of different influences they received.
St Sava became a myth and a constant
inspiration for the Serbian people. The
veneration of St Sava was supported by
a whole dynasty, a powerful church organisation
and the people of Serbia,
and that strengthened his cult back in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
During the period of the Ottoman domination,
St Sava was a central figure in
both the formal religious and traditional
cultures, which were responsible for
keeping the national spirit of the Serbs
alive. His miracle-working body in the
monastery of Mileseva was venerated
by pilgrims who came from near and far
destinations to implore his intercession.
The monks from the Mileseva Monastery
had always emphasised their role as
guardians of the tomb of St Sava and
his cult, even after Sinan Pasha took St
Sava’s relics to Belgrade (in 1594 or
1595), and burned them in order to
break the Serbian rebellion against the
Turks. For the Serbian Church and St
Sava cult promoters on the other hand,
the burning of the St Sava relics became
of utmost importance, through
which the Saint gained a posthumous
martyrdom status. His cult was strengthened
and his burial place in the Mileseva
Monastery augmented its value as a
pilgrimage site, which survives until
today.
In Serbian oral tradition during the Medieval
and the Ottoman periods, St Sava’s
role was to watch always over the
Serbian people. In many popular legends
and folk tales he is the creator of
miraculous springs, a master of the
forces of nature. Numerous sites have
been named after St Sava and considered
holy places (water springs, rocks,
mountain peaks etc.) and they are always
marked with a cross. This links
folk spirituality with nature, and nature
conservation.
St Sava’s Day (27 January) is the ‘slava’
(the patron saint’s day) for the
Mileseva Monastery and is celebrated
with holy liturgy, the operation of a spiritual
academy in the monastery and a
large gathering of people.
Christianity was introduced in Serbia in
the ninth century, but the Serbs maintained
a lot of pre-Christian rituals. St
Sava Christianised those customs and
linked them to Christian saints. Many
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