A Chronicle of Significant Events in the Past Year – the Direction in Which the Church Will Walk in the Coming Period

Dear spiritual children! As at the beginning of every New Year of the Lord’s love, from the throne of Saint Sava we send you our prayerful greeting and wishes that you may spend the coming year 2026 in every good and in God’s blessing, in peace and love.

The past year, we remind you, was marked by the 850th anniversary of the birth of Saint Sava, the Equal-to-the-Apostles enlightener of the Serbian people. Throughout the year, in various ways, we reminded first ourselves, and then all of you, dear spiritual children, of a saintly way of life—especially of one among the many wondrous events from the life of Saint Sava. We hoped, and still hope, that it would serve as an example and a lesson for us in our own time. We refer, of course, to the reconciliation over authority of quarrelling brothers at the relics of their father, Saint Simeon the Myrrh-streaming, in the year 1207, in the holy lavra of Studenica.

This time, pointing to that decisive example of reconciliation between brothers, we will also endeavor—through the person and work of Saint Sava—to shed light on a question that once again presents itself to our people, a question spiritual in nature in every respect, and one that concerns our cultural, religious, and civilizational orientation. The circumstances that lead to the occasional imposition of this question have remained unchanged from the time of Saint Sava until today; they are primarily political in character and only secondarily spiritual.

Namely, our national home, as is well known, was built in the middle of the road—and not just any road, but the one called the Via Militaris (the Military Road). This road both connects and separates East and West, so that we have very often, whether we wished it or not, found ourselves at the very epicenter of the conflict between East and West. In order for us to endure, the Lord first granted to Saint Sava, and then to many Serbs throughout history—I would say this became a national trait—the gift of uniting within ourselves the best qualities, and not only the best, of the man of the West and the man of the East. Following the Athonite monk Saint Sava, the Serb knows what prayer and prayerful stillness are, what repentance is, what fasting is, and what self-denial for the good of one’s neighbor is—even for the good of one’s enemy.

But, like Saint Sava, the Orthodox Serb of all centuries also knows how, as a man of the West, to be an effective worker, missionary, and traveler—an energetic organizer who solves problems both of ordinary people and of organizations and large systems. Therefore, Saint Bishop Nikolaj said that we can be above East and West, understanding that the Orthodox faith contains the answer to existential dead ends.

Even today, again and again, through choices related to resolving economic, financial, and political questions, we are in fact being told—and faced with—the dilemma of which civilizational circle the Serbian people belong to. As if, after more than eight centuries, we must once again choose some new, modern identity. We know that before Saint Sava, just as before us today, there were great challenges and trials. Yet Saint Sava, at the moment when the Orthodox empire we call Byzantium had been defeated, and when the emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople had been exiled to Asia Minor, nevertheless uncompromisingly chose Christ’s Orthodox Church, its culture, and a way of life marked by the seal of Orthodox Christianity.

We, however, as heirs of Saint Sava’s experience—the experience of all the holy Nemanjićs, as well as of the generations that did not depart from Saint Sava’s path neither under Ottoman bondage nor under the trials of later times—know that there is no other way for us than Christ’s way, the way that leads to life. The Serbian people, like every people, today need moral renewal. Upon evangelical principles and a living faith in the Living God—confirmed through the centuries by our holy forebears—rested, rests, and will rest every healthy person and community. May it be so also in our cross-bearing and Saint-Sava-inspired people today and unto all ages. Amen!

Your prayerful intercessor before the cradle of Christ the God-Child,

AEM and Serbian Patriarch
PORFIRIJE

Source: spc.rs