01 — Foundations

The starting point of the collection: the prince Rastko Nemanjić, youngest son of the founder of the Serbian state, who abandoned a princely appanage to flee to Mount Athos as a teenager and was tonsured the monk Sava; and the two early Lives, by Domentijan and Teodosije, through which almost everything about him reaches us.

Tradition: Serbian Orthodox

Files

File	Description
the-prince-who-fled-to-athos.md	Born Rastko, youngest son of Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja; Prince of Hum; the flight to Athos c. 1192; tonsure as Sava at the Russian monastery of St. Panteleimon, then Vatopedi
the-sources.md	The two early Lives — Domentijan (1253/54) and Teodosije (c. 1290–1320); Sava’s own typika; what is attested and how

See Also

• 02 — Hilandar and Athos — the monastic founding that Sava’s Athonite years produced
• 04 — The Autocephalous Church — the achievement toward which his whole life moved
• 09 — Legacy and Reception — the national saint and the modern scholarship