The Life of the Holy and Right-Believing Stefan the Tall, Despot of Serbia

slandered him, telling him that Stefan was "raising the Hungarians" against Bayezid.13 Then Bayezid demanded that Stefan himself come to his court to justify himself before him in person. Stefan's careful mother, the venerable nun Jevgenija, did not allow Stefan to go at once, but, as the biographer says, "that right-believing lady herself went on this account to Tsar Bayezid, having with her also her kinswoman, the former wife of Despot Uglješa, the nun Jefimija, who was very wise in many matters and words." The two of them were well received by Bayezid and, with the help of the Mother of God, in Whom they had placed all their hopes, they successfully accomplished their task, convincing Bayezid of Stefan's innocence. The venerable mother Jevgenija on that occasion obtained from the sultan by entreaty permission to take with her and translate to Serbia the holy relics of the Venerable Petka - Paraskeva, which Bayezid at once allowed.14 In addition to all this, Bayezid nevertheless demanded that Stefan himself come before him in person. Chivalrously sincere and firmly convinced of God's justice, and knowing that "the king's heart is in the hand of God" (Prov. 16:10), Stefan, having again taken counsel with his mother, went before Bayezid and sincerely confessed to him that he had had some conversations with his northern neighbors the Hungarians, and then at the end meekly said to the sultan: "Having judged that the matter was unseemly, I remembered my oath, and I came. Behold, my life is before God in your hand; do now what you will." And O wonder! The all-good God softened the heart of this proud pharaoh and caused his untamable wrath to be changed into mercy and love toward Stefan. And Bayezid, marveling at Stefan's meekness and sincerity, said: "O dear one, and what did you hope to achieve with the Hungarians? For I meant to take your land as my own. And you, what will you accomplish there? Who of those who rule, having bowed his head to the Hungarians, has achieved anything in his dominion?… I now regard you as my eldest and beloved son, and I say this before all around me. For who is held in such honor with me as you?" These and other words the sultan spoke to him, and then, as by some strange prophecy, foreseeing that Stefan would be a glorious and mighty ruler after his death, he counseled him to pacify "his mighty men and bring them under his will, and to cast down the slanderers." Then he dismissed Stefan, and Stefan "went back to his fatherland and came to his home adorned with honor, not only by the sultan, but also by all his magnates, and throughout his whole realm, and by all the peoples whom the Ishmaelites had subdued under their feet, wondrous and honored with love by all of them; and all the Christians from the depth of their hearts lifted up prayers to the Lord because God had exalted the horn of His chosen one." This great benefaction of God toward him the pious Stefan ascribed to the prayers of his forefathers, Saint Simeon and Saint Sava, as he himself writes somewhat later in his Mileševa charter (around 1405): "I write this for the knowledge of all, how from the great mercy and ineffable grace of the holy lords and founders of Serbia, Saint Simeon, autocrat of Serbia and Myrrh-streaming, and Sava, the holy great Archbishop of Serbia, who out of their great mercy were intercessors for my unworthiness before the Lord, and by their prayers I was many times saved both on sea and on dry land, in wars and in various