When was king Stefan the first-crowned included among the saints? A contribution to the study of royal “canonization” in medieval Serbia

Abstract

The surviving sources suggest that St Sava of Serbia was, as part of the programme of securing sacral legitimacy for the state and dynasty, setting the scene for the inclusion of his brother Stefan, the first-crowned Serbian king, among the saints. This part of the programme was not fully realized, but the focus of the cult was on the incorrupt relics. The cult of Stefan the First-Crowned was not rounded off until the seventeenth century, when the Patriarch Paisios wrote a vita and a service. The development of the cult over the centuries (from the 13th to the 20th century) was a direct reflection of changing historical circumstances and the prevailing ideology of rulership. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177003 (Srednjovekovno nasleđe Balkana - institucije i kultura]