1In the year 1219, as modern historiography has it, the Byzantine Roman emperor Theodore I Laskaris ordered the orthodox Ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Manuel I, who like the emperor was residing in Nicaea, to ordain archimandrite Sava Nemanjić as archbishop. The jurisdiction of the new archbishop corresponded territorially to the limits of the state governed by his brother Stefan, who, a few years earlier, in 1217, had been crowned king by the legates of Pope Honorius III. In accordance with Stefan’s title of «King and Autokrator of all Serbian and Maritime Lands» (краль и самодржьаць все српске и поморске земле), as he styled himself, Sava’s title was «Archbishop of all Serbian and Maritime Lands». In modern historiography these territorial designations are commonly abridged as Serbia. Thus the Hagiorite Sava, who had renewed the abandoned monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos together with his father, Saint Symeon Nemanja, who was also the former archimandrite of Studenica – the most important monastery in Serbia –, who would later be recognized as a saint, became the first head of the newly established archbishopric. He was authorized to ordain new bishops, which was the first step towards the creation of a new network of bishoprics in the Kingdom of Serbia. He also asked for the future episcopal synod of the archbishopric to be granted the right to consecrate archbishops in the country, thus avoiding the obligation for every newly elected archbishop to travel to the imperial city for consecration. After the intervention of the emperor, the Ecumenical patriarch and his permanent synod responded to this petition positively. Together, these events, which were the consequence of a complex evolution, resulted in the emergence of a new autocephalous archbishopric, the Archbishopric of Serbia. This status corresponds to the current ecclesiastical term «the local Orthodox Church». Here we shall explore only the main threads of the process in the political and church history that preceded and followed its foundation.1

2The primary sources for the question of Sava’s ordination and the establishment of an autocephalous Church in Serbia at the time are unusual, heterogeneous and relatively scarce. No document on Sava’s ordination or on the rights granted to the new local Church by the Patriarchate in Nicaea have survived. In general, the relevant contemporaneous record of the Nicaean provenance is poor and of secondary importance. Two letters have survived from the archbishop of Ohrid, Demetrios Chomatenos, one addressed to «the Monk» Sava in May 1220 as a contemporaneous protest against his ordination, the other to Patriarch Germanos, as a later protest, lateral in a way and addressed in a specific context. The most detailed information on the events is contained in two narrative sources, the two Vitae of Saint Sava, written at Mount Athos in the 13^th century by Domentijan and Teodosije.2

The institution of autocephaly in the Eastern Churches on the eve of the collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1204

3The institution of autocephaly already had a fairly long history in the Church by the time archimandrite Sava set out for Nicaea.3 The particular cases, though the details of these are not always clear today, certainly show unique and innovative aspects in their emergence, the variability of which was tied to each specific context (Cyprus, Iustiniana Prima, Georgia, Bulgaria).4 Each case represented also an exemption from the Pentarchy, an established system of the Church jurisdiction divided between the five old and major episcopal thrones (Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem), whose archbishops held the honorable dignity of pope or patriarch respectively. During the epoch of the Komnenoi there were two autocephalous local Churches within the Byzantine Empire – the autocephalous Archbishoprics of Cyprus and Bulgaria, i.e. Iustiniana Prima (Ohrid). These two institutions were out of the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Patriarchate, and their heads, the archbishops, were appointed by the emperor and consecrated by the local synod of bishops. Imperial appointment (πρόβλησις) and independence from the Patriarchate were considered the core elements of their autocephalous status.5 The imperial appointment of these archbishops, as well as the imperial appointment of the patriarch as a virtually liturgical act and an especially authoritative expression of the emperor’s role in the Church, was one of the practical manifestations of the charismatic and quasi-episcopal nature of imperial rule, tied to the emperor’s function as the epistemonarches, or the arbiter of the Church. According to Theodore Balsamon, the leading canonist during the era of the last Komnenoi, the emperor was not necessarily bound by canon law.6 However, the relationship between the emperor and canon law was not simple – Balsamon seems to have derived imperial rights in ecclesiastical affairs «not from a position of a ruler who is placed above canon law, but attached them to a right of appointment through canon law».7 The position of the epistemonarches of the Church allowed the emperor to intervene not only in administrative but also in dogmatic issues, although this happened rather rarely. And right at the time of the creation of the Archbishopric of Serbia, the learned archbishop of Bulgaria (Ohrid) Demetrios Chomatenos – thinking of Manuel I Komnenos and following the comments of Balsamon – advocated for the emperor’s authority and a wide array of rights he had as «the general epistemonarches of the Churches», among which are the right to make decisions about ecclesiastical jurisdictions, to appoint and transfer bishops and to elevate a bishopric to the rank of metropolitan.8

The general context of the post-1204 crisis of the Byzantine world

4The emergence of the Kingdom of Serbia in 1217 and the foundation of the autocephalous Church in 1219 were both indirect consequences of the rise of a local dynasty in the Serbian regions, the disintegration of the Byzantine Empire and the ascendance of the political power of the Papacy in the Eastern Mediterranean and in South-East Europe. The process of disintegration and fragmentation started in the last decades of the 12^th century but it gained crucial momentum from factors outside the Empire, in the perplexing events of the 4^th crusade. The peak of the fragmentation was certainly the conquest of Constantinople by the crusaders in 1204, followed by the establishment of the so-called Latin Empire, which replaced the former Greek-Orthodox Empire of the Romans, as well as by the establishment of several rampart states as kinds of successors of the former empire. The collapse of the Byzantine Empire in 1204 had numerous consequences, including the crisis and contestations of its imperial and patriarchal authorities.9

5The essence of the crisis lay, of course, in the fact that Constantinople – the capital of the Empire and the Orthodox Patriarchate – became the capital of the Latin emperor and the Latin patriarch. The institutions of the Orthodox Byzantine emperor and the Orthodox Constantinopolitan and Ecumenical patriarch survived, each in different circumstances, the tragic events of the year 1204. Alexios III Angelos fled the imperial capital in July 1203 just before the crusaders proclaimed Isaac II and Alexios IV as emperors. After their disappearance and the death of Alexios V in April 1204, he remained the last and only emperor and, moreover, the only emperor crowned in Hagia Sofia. He was an emperor without an empire when despot Theodore Laskaris, his son-in-law, conquered the northern areas of Asia Minor in his name and planted the seed of the subsequent Nicaean Empire there. Patriarch John X Kamateros left Constantinople when the crusaders finally conquered it in April 1204 and went to Didymoteichon. However, regardless of how real the power of the fugitive emperor or the exiled patriarch was, both lacked the aura of legitimacy given to them by the imperial capital. When Theodore Laskaris was proclaimed emperor, probably upon the news that the crusaders had captured his father-in-law Alexios III, the patriarch refused to come to Nicaea and crown him. The cause-and-effect cycle of the mutual affirmation of imperial and ecclesiastical rule in exile was most obvious in the period after the death of Patriarch John X in the summer of 1206, when the time came to appoint his successor. In the ecclesiastical conceptions of the Latin emperor and the Roman pope there was no room for an orthodox patriarch elected and consecrated by a synod of local bishops. At first a demand from the orthodox clerics of Constantinople to the pope and the Latin emperor for the election of a new patriarch was in vain. A number of them turned afterwards to Theodore Laskaris, recognizing him as true emperor and epistemonarches, and it was he who in the spring of 1208 organized the election of Michael IV. Immediately afterwards, the new patriarch performed the coronation and anointment of the proclaimed emperor. Several years were necessary before the imperial and patriarchal institutions were finally constituted in exile in Asia Minor.10

6Their authority, both real and theoretical, also encountered an inconsistent and uneven rate of acceptance and disapproval within the remnants of the Byzantine world. In the region under the rule of Michael I Komnenos Doukas, the core of which was Arta and Epirus, and in far-away Trapezuntos, where another branch of the Komnenos family had already found their autonomy at the end of the previous century, the Nicaean emperor was not recognized as the authentic successor and rebuilder of the fallen empire; nor was the jurisdiction of the patriarch recognized.11 Moreover, Michael I Doukas supported his cousin, Emperor Alexios III, in the vain attempt to take the empire from his son-in-law, Emperor Theodore I. Alexios III set off for Asia Minor from Epirus bearing the imperial insignia, but the failure of his ambitions after the battle of the Meander in 1211 and his subsequent death must have brought an end to his ephemeral imperial status in the lands of Michael I Doukas.12 On the other hand, when in 1209 a delegation of the autocephalous Archbishopric of Cyprus requested that Patriarch Manuel and his synod recognize the election and investiture of the new archbishop, the act was an early example of the recognition of the Nicaean imperial and patriarchal authorities, although they were exiled from Constantinople. Namely, the election of the new archbishop, Isaiah, was carried out by local bishops since their earlier request for an imperial πρόβλησις of a new archbishop had gone without answer for years. The decision made by the patriarchal permanent synod regarding the καθ’οἰκονομίαν recognition of the ordinations made by the local Cypriot synod meant that the Ecumenical Patriarchate accepted the Archbishopric of Cyprus into the liturgical communion, i.e. that the name of the archbishop Isaiah would be mentioned in the diptych of the Patriarchate. It was not in any way an expression of the patriarch’s jurisdictional powers over the Cypriot Church, which remained autocephalous.13 It is not known if the Cypriot delegation also turned to the emperor and asked for his post-factum assent regarding the nomination of the archbishop, as the decision made by the local synod deviated from the tradition in which the emperor would appoint the archbishop himself. However, no trace of such an event has survived. In any case, the imperial nomination of the archbishop of Cyprus continued to be practiced in Nicaea for some time, regardless of the fact that Cyprus had not been a part of the Empire since the late 12^th century and was under the control of western rulers.14

7In the regions ruled by the Epirotic branch of the Komnenoi the bishops were appointed first by Michael I Komnenos Doukas, then from 1214 by his heir, Theodore I Komnenos Doukas, and were consecrated by regional synods without the consent of the Patriarchate in its Nicaean exile. (It goes without saying that in the Epirote regions the earthly ruler commemorated in the liturgies was at first Michael Doukas and then Theodore Doukas, but never Theodore Laskaris.) This is how the ecclesiastical controversy between Nicaea and Epirus started. The ordinations of the new metropolitan of Dyrrachion and bishop of Larissa by a regional synod of Epirote bishops that took place in Arta in 1212 and not by the patriarchal permanent synod were made at the expense of the patriarch’s rights. However, the approval of the patriarch was sought later by Michael Doukas. In the meantime, the autocephalous archbishop of Bulgaria in Ohrid was appointed and consecrated in a similar manner. Namely, the Bulgarian rule in Ohrid, which begun around 1204, ended in 1214, when the Lord of Epirus, Theodore I Doukas conquered the city and the archbishop John Kamateros was restored to his seat. The consecration of Demetrios Chomatenos as the new archbishop in 1216 by the local synod of the archbishopric was the result of the appointment (πρόβλησις) made by the Epirote lord.15 Obviously, the status and rights of the Nicaean emperor were not recognized in the Archbishopric of Bulgaria. The new archbishop of Bulgaria evidently did not follow the example of the archbishop of Cyprus, who a few years earlier had asked the approval of his ordination from the authorities in Nicaea. In ca. 1220 Patriarch Manuel reluctantly recognized post factum the consecration of the metropolitan of Dyrrachion and bishop of Larissa, but not the consecration of Chomatenos. That is clear from his letter dating from ca. February 1222, addressed to John Apokaukos, Metropolitan of Naupaktos and a distinguished member of the Epirote clergy, and to the archbishop of Gardikiou, in which he accused Chomatenos of ignorance of the discipline and practice of the Church, of disrespect regarding the Canons etc. The same is corroborated by Apokaukos’s answer.16 The conflict between Ohrid and Nicaea was aggravated further when, in the following years, Chomatenos acted with quasi-patriarchal self-understanding, beyond the boundaries of the jurisdiction he had as the head of the autocephalous Church and with the consent of metropolitans and bishops in the state of Theodore Doukas, who had formally belonged to the jurisdiction of the exiled patriarch of Constantinople. The ecclesiastical controversy was political in essence, influenced by the struggle of the Nicaean Laskarides and Epirotic Komneno-Doukai for the imperium and renovatio of the Roman Byzantine Empire.17

8Therefore, in contrast to the autocephalous Archbishopric of Cyprus, the autocephalous Archbishopric of Bulgaria (Ohrid) was an example of a refusal to recognize the authority of the Nicaean Byzantine emperor. The fact that the consecration of Chomatenos as the archbishop of Bulgaria was not accepted in the Nicaean Empire, meaning that his name was not inscribed in the patriarchal dypticha, i.e. the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Archbishopric of Bulgaria were not in liturgical communion, which also meant that they were in a state of a de facto schism, was a crucially important circumstance under which Sava’s mission to Nicaea took place.

The local context of «all Serbian and Maritime Lands»

9On the eve of the grand turnover of 1204, the remote territory where the future local Church of all Serbian and Maritime Lands would be established was influenced by the two great political and ecclesiastical centres of New and Оld Rome, through the network of their formally independent or dependent archbishoprics of Ohrid, Dubrovnik, Bar and Split, and also by the two conceptions of monarchy, the Byzantine and the Papal. The jurisdiction of the Greek-Orthodox bishopric of Ras, a see of the Archbishopric of Bulgaria (Ohrid) and the central bishopric the Serbian regions, overlapped with the Roman-Catholic Archbishopric of Dubrovnik, although the jurisdiction of the coastal sees over the hinterland was more theoretical than real.18

10When Stefan Nemanja abdicated in 1196 and became a monk in Studenica he left the supreme power to his homonymous second son, Stefan Nemanja II (Nemanjić), married to Eudokia, the daughter of the reigning Byzantine emperor, Alexios III, while his eldest son, Vukan, was invested with a large territory centred in the maritime regions. In his request to Pope Innocent III for the pallium for his archbishop of Bar in 1199 Vukan styled himself king of Dioclea and Dalmatia, thus revoking the local tradition of the former kingdom of Dioclea. Although the title was recognized by the pope, there is no record that Vukan petitioned the Roman pontiff for coronation by a papal legate. However, his brother Stefan did so. He also broke off his marriage to Eudokia and distanced himself from Emperor Alexios III. The pope agreed and even chose a legate who would make Stefan obedient to the Roman Church and crown him king, but finally had to give up on the project due to opposition from the king of Hungary Emeric. Vukan overthrew Stefan in early 1202 with the aid of Emeric, having recognized his suzerainty, who pleaded his case for coronation before Innocent III. At the same time the pope demanded that the archbishop of Kalocsa consolidate the jurisdiction of the Roman Church in Serbia. These attempts met an end when Stefan ultimately returned to power, probably as soon as 1203.19 The reconciliation of the two brothers was supported by the third, archimandrite Sava, who returned from Hilandar in 1207 and transferred the relics of their father, Hosios Symeon Nemanja (who meanwhile had moved to Hagion Oros, renewed the monastery of Hilandar together with his son Sava and died there in 1199), to the monastery at Studenica, politically the most important Serbian ecclesiastical centre at that time.20 There his body soon became myrovlytes, an obvious sign of his sanctity. It was Sava who restored a «Byzantine» political order to Serbia. Sava’s conception of the earthly hierarchy of rulers, or at least a part of it, is still visible in the well-known inscription on the drum of the dome of the main church at Studenica, carved in 1208/09. The information it contains on the family relationship between the founder and the «Greek emperor» Alexios Komnenos reflects the contemporary political importance of the connection and was perhaps related to the contemporary liturgical commemoration of Alexios III as emperor, particularly in the Bishopric of Ras. The inscription shows that the fugitive Byzantine emperor, Alexios III had at that moment a quasi-constitutional importance in Serbia, the central plank of which was the former family connection between the two ruling houses, established with the marriage of Eudokia Angelina to Stefan Nemanja II, although by that time it had been dissolved for several years and Alexios III had not been the ruling emperor since his flight from Constantinople in 1203.21 It is important to note that the sources give no hint that either after his proclamation in 1206 or after his coronation in Nicaea in 1208 by the newly elected patriarch Michael was Theodore Laskaris considered the «Greek emperor» in the Serbian lands. However, the failure of Alexios III in 1211 and his death must have brought an end to his ephemeral imperial status in the lands of Stefan Nemanjić, as well as in those of Michael I Doukas.22

11Stefan Nemanjić had a quarrel with Michael I Doukas over the city of Scutari and made two failed attempts to establish closer political relations with his descendant Theodoros I Doukas. In 1215-1216 the archbishop John Kamateros refused to give his dispensation for the marriage that Stefan tried to negotiate with Theodore for his son Radoslav. Soon afterwards, the new archbishop Demetrios Chomatenos refused to dispense the already negotiated marriage of Stefan to another princess of the Komnenoi house. The justification was that the new family relationship between the rulers of Epirus and Serbia in the both cases would be too close and therefore had to be prohibited according to the canons of the Church.23 We may only guess at whether certain political considerations lay behind these decisions, but it seems very probable. At the same time, the new and extensive Vita of Saint Symeon written by Stefan Nemanjic ca. 1216 shows a significant political shift from the ideas of Sava on some points: Stefan completely omits the person of Emperor Alexios III from the official history of his holy predecessor, as well as his own marriage with Eudokia and the dignity of sebastokrator that he himself had received from his father-in-law; finally, he even omits the emperor’s role in the foundation of Hilandar. Equally indicative, Stefan refers in this text to Henry of Flanders as the contemporary Greek – i.e. Byzantine – emperor, most probably as a result of the official recognition of his imperial status.24 At that time, ca. 1216 Sava left Serbia against the wishes of his brother and went back to Hagion Oros and Hilandar. Stefan then turned to a matrimonial alliance with a Western power. In 1217 Stefan married Anna Dandolo, a bride from Venice and granddaughter of the late doge Enrico Dandolo. Later that year he was crowned king by a papal cardinal legate sent to him by Honorius III. It is assumed that the rite took place in the episcopal church of the Holy Apostles in Ras (today in Novi Pazar in Serbia), although the possibility that it occurred in the Archbishopric of Bar should also be taken into consideration.25

12The details on how this arrangement was negotiated are not exactly known, as they are in the case of Tsar Kalojan, who had first accepted papal supremacy and Church union, before the legate of Pope Innocent III in 1204 granted the archbishop of Tărnovo primas of Bulgaria and had him crowned king. It may be assumed that after the decline of the papal policy towards the Eastern Churches by the end of the Innocent pontificate the pre-conditions for a royal coronation of a ruler belonging to an Eastern Church by a papal legate had probably become less exacting than they had been a decade or more earlier.26 Thomas Archidiaconus, the earliest source on this coronation, gives no hint that Stefan had accepted the profession of the Roman Church or the primacy of the pope before the ceremony. On the other hand, we have the report of Domentijan, which up to a degree reveals certain tensions between Stefan and Sava, who at that time was still at Hagion Oros. For some reason the myrrh had stopped flowing from the tomb of Saint Symeon at Studenica and it was only after the letter with obviously ecclesiastical content written by Sava at Hagion Oros was read solemnly before the saint’s grave and Stefan had made his obeisance according to his brother’s instructions that the miracle continued as usual.27 It may beassumed that the two events were connected and that Sava successfully protested against some – today unknown – act of a confessional nature performed by Stefan. It is indicative that neither in the Vita of Saint Sava written by Domentijan, nor in that by Teodosije, do we find any hint of the ceremony of Stefan’s coronation in 1217. Andrea Dandolo, who almost a century later used the text of Thomas Archidiaconus for his narrative, mentions that Stefan, influenced by his wife, rejected his schismatic faith (abiecto schismate) before the wedding and the coronation. However, the account of Dandolo should not be overestimated, since he used for his narrative the work of Thomas, who is silent on the matter.28 In any case, the fact that Stefan was crowned by a papal cardinal legate is also essential for our understanding of the circumstances in which the ordination of Sava occurred.

Sava’s mission to Nicaea

13After he left Serbia ca. 1216 Sava stayed at Hagion Oros and Hilandar, where after some time he received «divinely inspired advice to go to the East», to his cousin Emperor Theodore I Laskaris. The narrative of Domentijan was in a way the official history of the time written for King Uroš of Serbia, and the ordination of Sava was one of the most important events in the text. The relevant chapter reflects some important contemporary political and ecclesiastical conceptions of the time. Sava first complained to the emperor that his country «did not have an archbishop», that there were many regions that «were not prospering under God’s guidance». He asked the emperor to «order the patriarch to ordain one of his (sc. Sava’s) brothers as archbishop», so that his «fatherland would have him for its consecration and that the authority of his great empire would be praised by him».29

14The fact that Sava addressed the emperor as the lord of Hagion Oros and recognized his authority in the matter of the promotions in the Church also shows his recognition of the impaired Byzantine imperial authority of the latter, expressed in his titles цар цар(о)град(ь)ски (literally: emperor of the imperial city) and царствоуюшти константина града (reigning emperor of the Constantine’s city). This was of the utmost importance to Theodore I Laskaris for his affirmation and recognition as the authentic Byzantine emperor in a decentred and fragmented Byzantine world.30 It goes without saying that in the spirit of the same conceptions an authentic Byzantine patriarch, like his emperor, must also have had his residence in the imperial city (цар(о)град). That was another important meaning of the attribution of the imperial function to Nicaea that until recently had been applied exclusively to Constantinople and a specific local reflex of the renovatio imperii undertaken by Laskaris.

15It is also important to observe that Sava addressed Laskaris as his «svat» i.e. cousin-german. The term corresponds to the Greek word «συμπένθερος» and it clearly shows that family links with Alexios III could still have political value and serve on occasion as a tool for the mutual legitimization of Stefan Nemanjić and Theodor Laskaris, who at the time were both married to Alexios’ daughters.31 The marriage of Stefan and Eudokia had offspring, so the kinship between the two dynasties survived the dissolution of the marriage and proved as politically important in the years to come.

16The appeal made by Sava, as reported by Domentijan, also contained another ecclesiological justification for the creation of a new archbishopric: there are many regions in his state that «were not prospering under God’s guidance». This was most probably a reference to the as yet under-developed network of bishoprics and parish churches, as well as to the threat of the dualist heresy of the Bogomils.32

17An especially significant part of Domentijan’s report is the emperor’s appointment of archbishop. Archimandrite Sava called on the emperor to select the archbishop among the persons of his entourage, which hints not only at the fact that he was well-informed about the emperor’s ecclesiastical rights, which included the right to make Church appointments (including the archbishops of autocephalous Churches), but was also another special way of recognizing Laskaris as the true Byzantine emperor, and by extension, as the quasi-bishop and epistemonarches who, by the election of an archpriest, would have manifested God’s will.33

18Sava’s recognition of Theodore Laskaris as emperor, who as such had the authority to chose a candidate and to order his patriarch to ordain an archbishop for Serbia, as well as the authority to change the territorial extent of the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Ohrid, was important, but was not the only ecclesiastical and diplomatic element in his address to Laskaris, as narrated by Domentijan in the form of a simple dialogue. According to Domentijan, Sava asked for the ordination of an archbishop who would praise the power of the emperor’s great empire (дрьжава великаго ти ц(а)р(ь)ства тъмь да величает се).34 Sava actually promised the emperor that his name would be commemorated at the dypticha during the Holy Liturgies in Serbia, which in other words means that the hierarchical supremacy of Theodor Laskaris as the authentic («Greek» i.e. Roman/Byzantine) Orthodox emperor would be recognized in the Nemanjić state. This was a precondition for this territory to become considered as a part of the Byzantine ecumene and to be put under the jurisdiction (though temporary) of the ecumenical patriarch by the emperor’s decision. The emperor’s attitude considering the patriarch’s jurisdiction over those eparchies of the Archbishopric of Ohrid that were positioned within the state of Nemanjić dynasty was, of course, above all a consequence of a de facto Church schism between Nicaea and Ohrid. This was a consequence of the fact that the archbishop of Ohrid was not chosen by the Nicaean emperor but by the Lord of Epirus. As such, neither did Chomatenos recognize Laskaris as the true emperor, nor did the Nicaean emperor and the patriarch recognize the ordination of the archbishop. Accordingly, Sava complained to the emperor that Serbia «did not have an archbishop» (sc. an archbishop regularly elected by the emperor). The exact date of Sava’s ordination is not known, but the year commonly accepted by modern scholarship is 1219.35 After his ordination and investiture with appropriate garments and crosier the new archbishop received the patriarchal charter confirming that he invested an archbishop for a part of the territory of patriarchal ecumenical jurisdiction, where the authority of the archbishop would be equal to his authority.36 The exact place of the ordination remains unknown too, although it may be assumed that the rite was performed in the cathedral church of Saint Sofia.

19Afterwards Sava as the archbishop of Serbia requested that the local synod be granted the right to consecrate future archbishops in the country, so avoiding the obligation for every newly elected archbishop to travel to the imperial city for investiture. Domentijan saw the justification for demanding the right to consecrate the archbishop to the local synod (so-called «self-consecration», i.e. autocephaly) in the political sphere, which is to say, in the fact that the Serbian state at that moment was «autocratic» (independent from the intervention of any foreign authority in the matters of election and investiture of its ruler): самоос(ве)щеннѹ быти от(ь)чьствѹ его. иакож(е) и б(о)жіею помощію самодръжавно (ес)ть.37 After the intervention of Emperor Theodore, Patriarch Manuel and his synod acceded to this petition and issued another relevant charter. Since the aforementioned charters are lost, the question remains as to whether the existing narrative sources are precise enough in terms of their nature and content.38 According to Domentijan, the patriarch’s charter on Sava’s appointment read: «The venerable patriarch of the whole of Ecumene Germanos (sic), appoints this kyr Sava as archbishop of all Serbian and Maritime Lands. And as my beloved son I send him into the Ecumene, which is under my ministry of orthodox Christian faith, to minister in my way over all cities and lands, over metropolitans and bishops and priests and monks according to God’s law, and to teach them according to his dignity in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit, and for you to obey him as you would me, who are in Christ orthodox Christian believers.» The text of the second charter is not paraphrased. The fact that Domentijan quoted Germanos as the patriarch who, following the order of Emperor Theodore, ordained Sava for the archbishop and who, together with his synod, afterwards issued a charter confirming the right of self-consecration (autocephaly) to the synod of the new Church, and not Manuel, provoked lot of discussion. One of the problematic elements is the date at which the Church of Serbia actually became autocephalous: was it during the patriarchate of Manuel or during that of Germanos, some ten years later? This complex issue cannot be addressed here. The widely accepted date is 1219.39

20While in the autocephalous Churches of Cyprus and Bulgaria (Iustiniana Prima) the archbishops were to be chosen by the emperor (πρόβλησις), in the case of Serbia the appointment of the next archbishop was evidently left to local actors.40 The right to consecrate the chosen archbishop at the council of bishops was a clear indicator that the newly-founded archbishopric was autocephalous. It was the personality of Archbishop Sava that influenced the emperor to grant this right, albeit reluctantly.41 Some ten years later, in 1234, the archbishop of Zagora i.e. Bulgaria (Tărnovo) had to travel to Nicaea to be consecrated, just as was initially planned for the new archbishop of Serbia, before the granting of autocephaly.42 To express the liturgical communion and τάξις of the local Churches, the new archbishop of Serbia was obliged to mention the Ecumenical patriarch as the first in rank at his liturgical dypticha.43 In his letter to John Apocaucos, metropolitan of Naupaktos, and to the archbishop of Gardikiou, from ca. February 1222, the same letter in which the consecration of Chomatenos is referred to as invalid, Patriarch Manuel, signed as the archbishop of Constantinople, the New Rome, and Ecumenical patriarch, makes reference to otherwise unspecified «barbarian Christians», who come «from all over the North and even beyond that and from the East, requesting canonically ordained clergy», and says that he «complied with their request». Here the patriarch must have had in mind the ordination of Sava as well.44 The consecration of Sava as the first archbishop for Serbia, together with the factual autocephaly of the new archbishopric, was in many ways a new administrative formula in the Eastern Orthodox Church. It should be seen as a part of the reaffirmation of the Patriarchate’s ecumenical authority in the orthodox world in general, notably in Serbia, Bulgaria and Russia, and of efforts to confront the growing influence of the Papal see in the area of South-Eastern Europe. Certainly, both sides gained much from the decision taken in Nicaea in 1219.45

The consolidation of the new local Church

21Sava’s next step after his return from Nicaea through Hagion Oros and Thessaloniki to Serbia was the consecration of bishops and the creation of a new episcopal network in the kingdom of his brother. The solemn rite took place in the main church of Žiča monastery, the seat of the archbishop, just after Easter, presumably in 1220.46 Afterwards he convoked and presided over a great church council. The main topics were a declaration on the profession of the true faith (The Homily on the True Faith) and a condemnation of heresy.47

22The next task was to ask for the consent of the pope for the political role that the archbishop of Serbia was envisaged to have in the ceremony of the enthronement and crowning of the kings of Serbia. This was the aim of the mission of bishop Metodije, who was sent to Rome probably just after the council, where most of the new bishops were consecrated to their dignities. In Rome he delivered a letter from King Stefan Nemanjić, who, as rex coronatus, declared his wish to be considered a son of the Holy Roman Church and of the pope, hoping that the pope’s blessings and confirmation would always remain upon his crown and lands.48 It seems logical to assume that this was the same letter that Domentijan attributed to Sava, who then should be seen as its actual author, and that it was he who gave the instructions to Metodije for his mission.49 Be that as it may, according to Domentijan, Archbishop Sava addressed the pope with regard to his political authority as the monarch of «the great Roman state» (паапи великые римскые дръжавы) and his ecclesiastical authority as the successor to the holy apostles Peter and Paul, the one «who shares the throne» (съпрестолникѹ) of the holy apostles with them. He asked the pope to send the blessings of the apostles and a crown blessed by him, so he could crown his brother king, following the tradition of Dioclea, «the first fatherland of their kingdom» (по пьрвомѹ от(ь)чьствѹ краліевства их[ь]).50 Sava received the crown and solemnly crowned and anointed his brother during the Holy Eucharist in the archiepiscopal church of Žiča monastery, the future coronation church of the Serbian kings, presumably in 1221.51 This ceremony was the first major political consequence of the foundation of a new local Church. We may only suppose that in relation to Rome the question of papal jurisdiction in the regions governed by the king of Serbia, and the dogmatic differences, had temporarily been set aside for some other occasion. By giving his consent to the coronation of the king by the archbishop of Serbia the pope agreed to exercise his monarchic authority in Serbia to the degree that this was possible at that moment. Thus, in ca. 1220, the political order in Serbia was a hybrid produced by several political and ecclesiastical authorities – those of the local dynasty, as well as of the two Romes, Nova and Antiqua. The autocephaly of the Church was one of the two key elements of that unique order, paralleled and historically preceded by the quasi-imperial character of its ruler’s authority, expressed in the adequate title самодръжац.52 The political and ecclesiastical authorities that were recognized as universal, although exiled, were those of the «Greek» (Roman/Byzantine) emperor and the Ecumenical patriarch and their relations with the Archbishopric of Serbia were, in terms of ecclesiology, encapsulated in the relevant commemoration of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities in the Holy liturgies there.53

23The emergence of the new local Church also included many other aspects that are out of the narrow scope of this text, such as important changes in liturgical life, namely the replacement of Greek with Slavonic as the official liturgical language, work on translation of various liturgical texts, as well as of the corpus of Byzantine legislation, the import of certain important Christian relics, intensive building activity and the development of sacral art in general.

The contestation of Demetrios Chomatenos and the ephemeral move towards Ohrid

24The new ecclesiastical order in the Kingdom of all Serbian and Maritime Lands was very soon to be contested by Demetrios Chomatenos, the archbishop of all Bulgaria and Iustiniana Prima, an excellent canonist educated as a nomotrivoumenos (private legal expert).54 In May 1220 he wrote a letter to the «monk» Sava protesting the latter’s ordination as non-canonical (...τῆς ἀκανονίστου ταύτης ἐπιχειρήσεως), made at the expense of his own jurisdiction over Serbia. He also protested for the ordination of new episcopes of Ras and Prizren (the second was installed after the expulsion of his canonically ordained predecessor).55 We will not comment on Chomatenos’s legal and historical arguments, since this is not necessary within the scope of this paper and has already been done on many occasions.56 The letter is frequently taken as an expression of Chomatenos’s protest regarding the autocephalous status of the Serbian Church. However, it should be stressed that Chomatenos never mentions the autocephaly of Serbia nor does he make allusion to it. What appears crucially important is the political nature of his key argument, the one regarding the imperial authority of Theodore Laskaris as responsible for the legality of both Sava’s ordination and the limitation of the new church diocese. Chomatenos considered Laskaris to be no more than a local lord and his imperial authority not valid for promotions (Ποῦ δὲ καὶ βασιλεία νῦν, ἧς τά τε ἄλλα καὶ τὸ τοιούτων προνομίων σέμνωμα, πολλῶν ἄρτι κατὰ τόπους ἐξουσιαζόντων καὶ μηδενὸς ἀποσώζοντος ἀκέραιον τὸ τῆς βασιλείας ἀξίωμα; Καὶ εἰ οὐκ ἔστιν ἀληθινὴ βασιλεία, οἴχεταί σοι πάντη και πάντως τὸ εὔλογον).57 That nobody any longer exercised imperial rule in its integrity was the basic idea of the political ideology of the lords of Epirus and the high ecclesiastical circles of their realm.58 We know that Chomatenos was a supporter of the emperor’s immense authority as the epistemonarches in the Church, which included ecclesiastical administration. This conception was, of course, based on the notion that imperial rule was indisputable, as was the case with Manuel I Komnenos.59 Chomatenos contested exactly that which was the cornerstone of Sava’s ordination and finally threatened him with excommunication. There is no trace that he ever received a reply. Since at the time of Sava’s investiture the Ecumenical Church and the Archbishopric of Ohrid were de facto in schism, it is probable that Archbishop Sava never even replied to this protest.

25Moreover, it seems that Chomatenos was pressed by the authority of his lord Theodore Doukas to give up his case. This is suggested by the letter he sent in 1228 to the Ecumenical patriarch Germanos, where he states that the ordination of Sava is τὸ ἀπόρρητον, i.e. something that is forbidden to be spoken about (Αὐτόθεν γάρ, ἵνα τὸ ἀπόρρητον εἴπω, ἐπὶ ἀδικίᾳ ἡμετέρᾳ Σάββας ἐχειροτονήθη ἀρχιεπίσκοπος Σερβίας).60 The letter is actually a reply to the protest that Germanos addressed in 1227 regarding Chomatenos’s act of imperial coronation and anointment of Theodore Doukas in Thessaloniki, performed the same year.61 The ordination of Sava is taken as a justification for Chomatenos’s act of anointing, performed according to the rights he had as the archbishop of Iustiniana Prima, equal to those of the pope.62 As far as can be reconstructed from the preserved correspondence between Chomatenos and Germanos, it seems quite clear that the former never protested Sava’s ordination to the Ecumenical patriarch before he did so in the context of his conflict with Germanos in 1228. Germanos’s letter of 1227 was a reply to Chomatenos’s letter of the same year, which is the earliest trace of their correspondence. Germanos’s letter does not call Chomatenos’s title of archbishop into question, nor does it refer to the manner of his appointment, but it clearly shows that the patriarch did not consider himself to be in liturgical union with the archbishop.63 The ἀπόρρητον with regard to the ordination of Sava was probably the consequence of another important political event, since the marriage of Stefan’s eldest son and heir Stefan Radoslav, or Stefanos Doukas, as he often styled himself, to Anne, daughter of Theodore I Doukas, had already been agreed upon 1219, at exactly the time when the controversy on Sava’s ordination started. Thus, Chomatenos was most probably thwarted by Doukas’s political authority to take any further steps after his protest to Sava in May 1220.

26In the longer run, both the contested ordination and the autocephaly of the new local Church coincided with further developments in the Nicaea-Epirus ecclesiastical and political conflict. The imperial promulgation of Theodore I Doukas by Chomatenos intensified the rivalry between the two states, now competing empires, which soon developed into an open ecclesiastical schism. In 1228 canonical relations were broken off and the patriarch’s name was omitted from the dyptichs of the episcopal churches in the territory ruled by Theodore Doukas.64 It was clear that the validity of the imperial title, whether at Nicaea or at Thessaloniki, could definitely be justified only retrospectively by the restoration of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in Constantinople, if that were actually to happen. After the disastrous military defeat of Theodore I Doukas in the Battle at Klokotnitsa in 1230 by Bulgarian Tsar Ivan Asen II it became clear that the Epirotic branch of Komneno-Doukai were losing the upper hand in the struggle with their Nicaean counterparts and would have to give up hopes of installation on the imperial throne in Constantinople.

27The documentary record of Chomatenos shows that at a certain time the Serbian king Stefanos Doukas addressed him, asking for a clarification of certain dilemmas he had regarding the liturgical praxis in Serbia. As a reputed specialist in Canon law Chomatenos had been asked by many people to advise them on the matter, but in this case it can also be hypothesized that the king had recognized the pastoral authority of the archbishop in his kingdom, most probably under the influence of his wife.65 If that was indeed the case and if the correspondence fell into the period before 1230, a part of this shift may have been the inclusion of the names of Theodore I Doukas as the emperor and Chomatenos as the archbishop in the liturgical diptych. It is highly probable, although the chronology is uncertain, that the correspondence occurred in the wider context of the mentioned ecclesiastical schism, which finally ended in 1233. Even if it was restricted only to the matter of a spiritual advice, the move towards the Archbishopric of Ohrid certainly was contrary to the spirit and letter of ecclesiastical communion between the Archbishopric of Serbia and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Stefan Radoslav was deposed after an aristocratic revolt in 1233, which was later justified by the otherwise unspecified bad influence that the king’s wife had on him.66 Perhaps a part of the problem was the king’s move towards Ohrid, which nonetheless turned out to be ephemeral, whatever its nature really was.

28Finally, the one true capital city of the Orthodox Byzantine Empire was restored to it by the Nicaean emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos when he triumphantly entered Constantinople on the 15^th of August 1261. The Hagiorite monk Sava probably had never had a dilemma regarding whether to turn to Ohrid or to Nicaea when it came to seeking a solution regarding the organization of the Church of Serbia. Be that as it may, his decision to set upon the road to Nicaea was simply prophetic, because the restoration of the empire in Constantinople gave an aura of legitimacy to the Nicaean period as well. Michael Palaiologos, however, deemed that an emperor had the right to take away what he or his predecessor had previously granted. By issuing a chrysobull for the Archbishopric of Ohrid in 1273, on the eve of the Council of Lyon in 1274, he theoretically restored the authority of the archbishop over a large portion of Serbia.67 The important issues of the imperial contestation of the Serbian Church and the relation of Serbia towards the Union of Lyon call for a fresh and more detailed study, which naturally cannot be offered here.