SABAS

SABAS. The name of two important saints (q.v.) of the Orthodox Church: 1) Sabas the Sanctified (439–532) was a monk who founded the greatly influential monastery in the Judaean desert, today called by his name, Mar Saba. It later housed such figures as Joh n of Damascus and Gregory of Sinai (qq.v.), and in the process served as an invaluable conduit of Syrian and Mesopotamian Christian literature to the Church of Byzantium (q.v.). 2) Sava of Serbia (1175–1235) was born to the princely house of Stephan Nemanja, founded the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on Mt. Athos (q.v.) in 1198, and went in 1219 to the Byzantine court in exile (following the Fourth Crusade) to receive consecration at the hands of the Ecumenical Patriarch (q.v.), Manuel I, as the first archbishop of Serbia. He spent the remaining years of his life building up his Church, defending it from claims of the Roman popes and of rival Greek archbishops, and thus firmly rooted his nation and the Serbian Orthodox Church within the Orthodox oikoumene (qq.v.). He was soon canonized and is venerated today as the patron saint of Serbia.