Despot Stefan Lazarević
Charters of Despot Stefan to the Great Lavra Monastery
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the most honorable among the monks, the lord Grigorije, and all the elders [monks] who are with him [in the Lavra], that they agree, promise and sign with their own hand - and this they shall deliver to me, and this all the former abbots, spiritual fathers and elders [monks] who are in the Lavra shall also do - that in the midst of the Great Church, once every year, they will give me a commemoration according to the custom of the Church and of the emperors, as founder (ktitor), for as long as the Monastery exists, as is done [here] for the earlier departed, blessed and ever-memorable Emperor Stefan.
For this reason I confirm all that is written above by my firm promise and command, that it remain firm and unchanged for all the time of my life. After my death, by the will of God, whomever God shall set to rule upon my throne: whether my brother, or a son, or one of my kinsmen, or anyone at all - I beseech him to preserve unchanged what has been said above.
But if anyone should destroy or alter anything of all that is written above, let such a one be accursed by the Lord God Almighty and by His Most Pure Mother of God, and by the power of the precious and life-giving Cross, and by the Holy and All-praised Chief 12 Apostles, and by the 318 Holy and God-bearing Fathers of Nicaea, ever pleasing to God. Amen.
All that has been said above was written down and confirmed by my command and by a charter with a golden seal, in the year 6915 (1407), indiction 15, on the 5th of the month of January.
By the grace of God lord of all the Serbs, Despot Stefan
On the pendant wax seal appears the text:
The Orthodox and Christ-loving lord of the Serbs and of the Danube lands in Christ God, Despot Stefan
Translation into modern Serbian after: Aleksandar Mladenović, Charters and Letters of Despot Stefan: Text, Commentaries, Photographs (Povelje i pisma Despota Stefana: tekst, komentari, snimci), "Povelje" Edition (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2007), 243–245 (with minor changes).





