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

to Saint Basil the Great (who reposed at those same years), since he was in many ways like him in his life and deeds, though each in his own order and rank. For like St. Basil, Stefan too was a lover of purity, of chastity, of the ascetic labor of almsgiving and prayer, and again a lover of the reading of divine books, of the knowledge of God, and of wisdom. Likewise, as Basil was a fearless champion of the Orthodox Church and wisely steered her ship, sailing over the stormy sea of the circumstances and temptations of his day, ever between Scylla and Charybdis, so too this God-given ruler of his Christ-named people, the pillar and fortress of all the right-believing and Orthodox, with the wisdom and prudence of Basil steered the ship of the Serbian Christian state in times troubled and hard for his people and his nation. And the blessed end of this lover of Christ was thus. As he was returning from Srebrenica and looking about his land for where to raise yet another church, news was suddenly brought to him that Sultan Murad II had set out from Vidin up the Danube, defeated the Hungarians, and seized an island from them. The Despot therefore hastened to Belgrade by way of his cities of Belo Polje and Srebrenica below Rudnik. When he had passed Srebrenica and was near the villages of Drvenglava and Stojnik, “at the place called Glavica,” near present-day Mladenovac, he was suddenly taken ill in the heart and in peace gave up his spirit to the Lord, on July 19, 1427, at about 11 o’clock in the morning. He was buried with honor and in holiness in his endowment, the monastery of Resava, and was worthily mourned and lamented by the whole Serbian people. Constantine the Philosopher, the writer of the Life, describes thus the Despot’s end and the universal sorrow and weeping of the Serbian people for their dear and holy lord. “The blessed Stefan,” he says, “was going about the land in order to raise yet another divine temple. And from there he heard that this Hungarian island had been seized, and he set out toward Belgrade. When he was at the place called Glavica, he dined and then went out a little to hunt. And while he was still hunting, he took a sparrowhawk upon his hand. But when he took it, he did not carry it as he should. Then he began to sway now to one side, now to the other, so that he was about to fall from his horse, and his companions caught him on both sides and led him to the lodging. And when they laid him down beneath the tent, he lay quietly, and this was a moving sight to all, and he uttered only one cry: ‘For Đurađ, for Đurađ!’28 And so he spoke nothing more until morning, when he also gave up his spirit to the Lord. And he reposed in the year 1427, on the 19th day of the month of July, on a Saturday, at the fifth hour of the day. At the time when he was lifted down from his horse, there came suddenly over the city such a thunderclap, sudden and terrible, as we had never heard. From that hour there was also darkness over all that region, so that we thought it was already night, and only at sunset did it grow a little lighter. And yet this was at midday.” “And when this came to pass thus,” Constantine relates further, “that is, the sudden death of the Despot, what grief was then not heard in the Serbian land? For from grief for the holy Despot men fell on their faces to the ground, and blood poured from them, or something else of the kind befell them. They did not lament him only as their lord, but as a father, with the love that is due. Then they at once sent for Đurađ (who was in Zeta), and they themselves took the Despot and carried him toward the tomb that he himself had made for himself in Resava. And for the translation of his