The Tonsure and Saint Anastasija

Having abdicated, Nemanja took the monastic habit under the name Simeon, withdrawing first to his own foundation of Studenica; and his wife Ana, at the same renunciation, was tonsured the nun Anastasija. She is herself venerated as St. Anastasija of Serbia — the mother of St. Sava, St. Stefan the First-Crowned, and the whole holy dynasty — who ended her days in a convent Nemanja had built and was buried beside her husband at Studenica. The renunciation was thus a double one: the founding couple of the Nemanjić house became, together, monk and nun.

Tradition: Serbian Orthodox

The Tonsure of Nemanja as Simeon

At his abdication in 1196 (see The Abdication Council of 1196), Nemanja took monastic vows and received the monastic name Simeon (Serbian Simeon; also transliterated Symeon), the name by which the Church now venerates him (Stefan Nemanja, English Wikipedia; Simeon the Myrrh-flowing, OrthodoxWiki; Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits, ch. 4). The tradition places the taking of the habit in the church of Sts. Peter and Paul at Ras, at or immediately after the abdication assembly, after which the new monk withdrew to his own great foundation of Studenica, the marble mausoleum he had built, to live the monastic life in the house he had raised for his burial (Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits, ch. 4; Stefan Nemanja, English Wikipedia; see Studenica, the Marble Mausoleum).

The change of name marked the completeness of the renunciation. Stefan Nemanja — the warrior, unifier, and prince — was, in monastic reckoning, dead; Simeon the monk was born, a man with no realm, no title, and no possessions, bound to poverty, chastity, and obedience like any other brother of the community. That the founder of a state should submit himself, in old age, to the discipline of a monastery he did not rule but merely inhabited is the concrete substance of the renunciation the tradition so admires (Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits, ch. 4).

Ana Becomes the Nun Anastasija

Nemanja did not renounce the world alone. His wife of some four decades, Ana (baptized Ana/Anna), took monastic vows at the same renunciation and received the name Anastasija (Anastasia), after the early martyr St. Anastasia of Sirmium (Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia; John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia, Mother of Saint Sava,” johnsanidopoulos.com; OCA, “Venerable Anastasia of Serbia”). The couple who had ruled the Serbian lands and raised the dynasty ended their marriage in a shared surrender of the world — he to the monk’s habit, she to the nun’s — a double tonsure that the tradition presents as the fitting seal of a Christian marriage and the founding act of a holy family (John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018).

[Disputed: The sources vary on the precise setting and moment of Ana’s tonsure — whether she took the veil together with Nemanja at Ras in 1196 or entered monastic life at the convent shortly after — and on her exact age and years; the biographical particulars descend largely from the later Serbian tradition (John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018; Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia; and the sibling collection’s note that “he became the monk Symeon and she the nun Anastasia,” St. Sava: Founding Hilandar). The core fact — that Ana was tonsured the nun Anastasija at the renunciation and is venerated as a saint — is constant.]

The Convent at Kuršumlija and Her Repose

While Simeon withdrew to Studenica and then made the great journey to Mount Athos to join his son Sava (see Athos and Hilandar), Anastasija remained in Serbia. She entered the convent of the Most Holy Mother of God (later called Petkovača) near Kuršumlija, on the plateau between the Kosanica and Toplica rivers — one of the very foundations Nemanja himself had built in his appanage years (see Đurđevi Stupovi and the Endowments) — and there lived out her monastic life (Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia; John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018). The tradition holds that she reposed in peace at her convent on 22 June 1200, some months after her husband’s death at Hilandar, and that her relics were subsequently laid at Studenica, where they rest to this day beside the mausoleum-church of the dynasty (Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia; John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018).

[Disputed: The date of Anastasija’s repose (22 June 1200) and her ages are given by the later tradition and modern reference accounts, not by a contemporary document; they are reported here as that tradition attests (per METHODOLOGY §3.5) (Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia; John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018).]

St. Anastasija of Serbia: The Mother of the Holy Dynasty

Ana-Anastasija is venerated in her own right as St. Anastasija of Serbia, commemorated by the Serbian Orthodox Church on 22 June (Julian calendar) (OCA, “Venerable Anastasia of Serbia,” 21 June; Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia). Her title to sanctity is bound up with her family: she was the wife of St. Simeon and the mother of the two founding saints of Serbian Orthodoxy — St. Sava, first archbishop of the Serbs, and St. Stefan the First-Crowned (venerated as St. Simon the Monk) — as well as of Vukan and of daughters (John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018; Anastasia of Serbia, English Wikipedia). In the iconography of the holy dynasty she takes her place as the mother of the line, and her own monastic renunciation completes the image of the founding couple who exchanged a crown and a consort’s dignity for the habit of monk and nun.

Her cult is more modest than her husband’s or her sons’ — there is no myrrh, no Athonite drama, no great Life by a hagiographer of the first rank — but it is real and enduring, and it matters for the shape of the whole story. The holiness of the Nemanjić house is not the holiness of a single charismatic founder but of a family: father, mother, and sons together renouncing the world and being received by the Church as saints. Anastasija is the mother in that family, and her quiet sanctity at the Kuršumlija convent is the feminine and domestic face of the great renunciation that her husband made on the public stage of the abdication council (John Sanidopoulos, “Saint Anastasia of Serbia,” 2018; see The Holy Dynasty and Serbian Orthodoxy).

The Double Renunciation as the Root of a Holy Family

The tonsure of Simeon and Anastasija together is best understood as the root from which the holy dynasty grew. Their youngest son had already fled to Athos to become the monk Sava; now the parents themselves renounced the world; and in time their middle son Stefan, the heir, would also die in the habit as Simon the Monk. The pattern of ending one’s life in monastic repentance, and of the ruling house being at the same time a house of saints, begins with this couple’s shared surrender in 1196 (Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits, ch. 4; see The Cult of Symeon, from the son’s side). The great renunciation was, in the fullest sense, a family act — and the family it founded was a family of saints.

See Also

References

  • Anastasia of Serbia. English Wikipedia (used to locate her name, tonsure, the Kuršumlija convent, her repose on 22 June 1200, and burial at Studenica; pinned as tradition under METHODOLOGY §3.5).
  • John Sanidopoulos. “Saint Anastasia of Serbia, Mother of Saint Sava (+1200).” johnsanidopoulos.com, 2018. On her life, monastic name, convent, and veneration.
  • Orthodox Church in America. “Venerable Anastasia of Serbia.” oca.org (feast and life).
  • Obolensky, Dimitri. Six Byzantine Portraits. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988, chapter 4. On the tonsure of Nemanja as Symeon and the renunciation.
  • Stefan Nemanja and Simeon the Myrrh-flowing. English Wikipedia and OrthodoxWiki (used to locate the monastic name and the tonsure at Ras/Studenica).
  • METHODOLOGY.md §3.5 (attestation-pinning), this repository.