Saint Great-Martyr Lazarus
of Serbia.

Lazar was born in Prilepac, which is near Novo Brdo, in 1329, the son of the imperial chancellor Pribac Hrebeljanović. He was educated at Emperor Dušan's court in Prizren. Young Lazar gained the confidence of the Serbian emperor and was appointed to positions of responsibility during the reign of Stefan Dušan, the most powerful Serbian ruler of the medieval period.

He was later granted the high title knez ("prince" in Serbian) by Dušan's successor St. Emperor Stefan Uroš V. Despite his imperial title, Uroš was a weak and ineffectual leader, allowing local nobles to gain power and influence at the expense of the central authority. Lazar remained a loyal vassal to Stefan Uros V. During his lifetime, he had achieved considerable prestige as the major lord on the territory of the former Serbian Empire. The Church saw him as the only ruler worthy and capable of succeeding the Nemanjićs and restoring their state.

Lazar married Milica (Venerable Euphrosine of Serbia) around 1353. Milica was a relative of Emperor Dušan. The marriage strengthened Lazar's legitimacy by connecting him to the Nemanjić dynasty. They had seven children together, including his successor Stefan Lazarević.

In the year 1371 he was chosen King of all Serbia and he toiled much at strengthening the condition of the country. He pacified neighboring princes, who had wronged or plundered Serbian settlements. He was concerned also for the Christian enlightenment of the nation, he built churches, supported the monasteries and charitable establishments. Lazar became not only a political unifier but a great patron of Orthodox monasticism and ecclesiastical life.

A major achievement of Lazar's reign was reconciling the Serbian Church with Constantinople. He called, together with his son-in-law Đurađ Stracimirović, a synod that elected a new patriarch, Saint Ephraem. Lazar sent a delegation to Constantinople with the monk Isaiah to implore the patriarch to heal the Serbian-Constantinople Schism of 1352. In 1375, full communion between Peć and Constantinople was re-established in the Holy Archangels Monastery on the grave of Emperor Dušan. St. Lazar restored the monasteries of Hilandar on Mount Athos and Gornjak. He built Ravanica and Lazarica in Kruševac and was a benefactor of the Russian monastery of St. Pantaleon on Mt. Athos, as well as many other churches and monasteries.

Lazar is celebrated as a saint and martyr in ten cultic writings composed in Serbia between 1389 and 1420; nine of them could be dated closer to the former year than to the latter. These writings were the principal means of spreading the cult of Saint Lazar, and most of them were used in liturgy on his feast day.

In his final years, since the encounter at Pločnik in 1386, it was clear to Lazar that a decisive battle with the Ottomans was imminent. After he made peace with Sigismund, to avoid troubles on his northern borders, the prince secured military support from Vuk Branković and King Tvrtko. Prince Lazar knew that his chances against the Turkish aggressor were small and on the eve of the Battle of Kosovo he gathered his upper aristocracy and asked if they should fight for the Holy cross and Golden Freedom or surrender to their adversaries and live as slaves of the Muslims. They had to chose between the Heavenly Kingdom and earthly one. In the true spirit of Christianity they preferred to place their hope in Christ and Eternal Life.

The Battle of Kosovo, the most famous battle in Serbia's medieval history, was fought on 15 June 1389. In the fierce fighting and mutual heavy losses, both Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad lost their lives. Lazar is killed during battle, Sultan Murad was assassinated after the battle by Serbian nobleman later identified as Miloš Obilić(or Kobilić), pretended to have deserted to the Ottoman forces. Lazar, all in wounds, was taken captive and led to Beyazit. The latter ordered him to be beheaded.

After the Battle of Kosovo, Prince Lazar was interred in the Church of the Ascension in Priština, the capital of Vuk Branković's domain. After a year or two, in 1390 or 1391, Lazar's relics were transferred to the Ravanica Monastery, which the prince had built and intended as his burial place. The translation was organized by the Serbian Church and Lazar's family. The ceremonial interment of the relics in Ravanica was attended by the highest clergy of the Serbian Church, including Patriarch Danilo III. It is most likely at this time and place that Lazar was canonized, though no account of his canonization was written.

The authors of the cultic writings interpreted the death of Lazar and the thousands of his warriors on the Kosovo Field as a martyrdom for the Christian faith and for Serbia. Sultan Murad and his army are described as bloodthirsty, godless, heathen beasts. Prince Lazar, by his martyrdom, remains eternally among the Serbs as the good shepherd. His cult was adjoined to the other great cults of medieval Serbia, those of the first canonized Nemanjićs—Saint Simeon (whose secular name was Nemanja) and his son Saint Sava.

In this period they started to use printing to spread the veneration of the Holy Prince: they made a woodcut representing Lazar as a cephalophore, holding his severed head in his hand. Arsenije IV Šakabenta, Metropolitan of Karlovci, employed in 1741 the engravers Hristofor Žefarović and Toma Mesmer to create a poster titled "Saint Sava with Serbian Saints of the House of Nemanja", where Lazar was also depicted. Its purpose was not only religious, as it should also remind people of the independent Serbian state before the Ottoman conquest, and of Prince Lazar's fight against the Ottomans.

After nearly three centuries the relics of Saint Prince Lazar on 9th September 1989 were placed back in its endowment, Ravanica Monastery, where they now stand. It rests there today incorrupt and extends comfort and healing to all those who turn to him with prayer. Saint Lazar remains a supreme example of Orthodox Christian faithfulness and the principle of "everything for Christ," inspiring countless Serbian believers across the centuries and representing the continuity of Orthodox faith amid trials.

Saint Lazar Hrebeljanović was a medieval Serbian ruler who created the largest and most powerful state on the territory of the disintegrated Serbian Empire, known as Moravian Serbia. Lazar ruled Moravian Serbia from 1371 until his death in 1389.

Rising to prominence in a fragmented realm, in the year 1371 he was chosen King of all Serbia and he toiled much at strengthening the condition of the country. He pacified neighboring princes, who had wronged or plundered Serbian settlements. He was concerned also for the Christian enlightenment of the nation, he built churches, supported the monasteries and charitable establishments. Among his achievements, in 1380 the saint established the monastery at Rovanetz, and he founded the renowned Ravanica Monastery near Čuprija, a major ktetor (foundation) that not only promoted Orthodox spirituality but also symbolized his patronage and legitimacy as ruler, with its founding charter issued in 1381.

At this time, the Serbian Orthodox Church was in a dispute with the Patriarch of Constantinople. King Dušan the Powerful wanted Serbia to have an independent Church. He single-handedly sought to elevate the Serbian archbishop to the level of a patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople utterly rejected this act and broke relations with the Church in Serbia. This was a very serious problem and one which King Lazar managed to solve by reconciling the Serbian Church and that of Constantinople. It was a result of this reconciliation that gave the Serbian Church its first canonical Patriarch.

As Ottoman forces threatened the region, the Battle of Kosovo, the most famous battle in Serbia's medieval history, was fought on 15 June 1389. In the fierce fighting and mutual heavy losses, both Prince Lazar and Sultan Murad lost their lives. According to tradition, Lazar, having been visited by an angel of God on the night before the battle, was offered a choice between an earthly or a Heavenly kingdom. This choice would result in a victory or defeat, respectively, at the coming Battle of Kosovo. Lazar, naturally, opted for the Heavenly kingdom, declaring to his soldiers, "We die with Christ, to live forever."

At the time of the Battle of Kosovo, the wounded king was taken prisoner. On the orders of Sultan Bayazet, he was beheaded with a sword on June 15, 1389. Nearly a year later, his sons Stefan and Vuk, along with the clergy and the people, uncovered the remains of the great martyr and found his body incorrupt. The Peć Chronicle of that time attests that it emitted a beautiful fragrance. Thus, the Almighty Lord granted the incorruption of Tsar Lazar's body as undeniable proof of his martyrdom for Christ, his godly life, and his sanctity.

After two centuries of rule of the Nemanjić dynasty, most members of which were canonized, Lazar was the first lay person to be recognized as a saint. It is most likely at this time and place that Lazar was canonized, though no account of his canonization was written. He was included among the Christian martyrs, with his feast day being celebrated on 15 June.