On the occasion of the exhibition marking the 850th anniversary of the birth of Saint Sava, the most significant Serbian holy relics from the Imperial Lavra of Hilandar Monastery on Mount Athos, connected with the life of the first Serbian Archbishop, are arriving in Belgrade today.

This has been made possible thanks to the efforts of Patriarch Porfirije of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the reputation enjoyed by the Serbian Orthodox Church in friendly Greece and its most important institutions, the Serbian Orthodox Church announced today. As stated in the announcement, the relics will be welcomed at Nikola Tesla Airport by the Patriarch and the highest representatives of the Serbian state, with both church and state honours.

The historic exhibition, simply titled “Saint Sava”, staged by the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church at the Gallery of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, will run from 15 May to 19 July.

It will be a completely unique and unrepeatable opportunity for the faithful, alongside other precious works of art connected with the personality and life of Saint Sava, to see and venerate the mosaic icon of the Virgin Hodegetria, before which Stefan Nemanja – later glorified in monastic life as Saint Simeon the Myrrh-streaming – fell asleep in the Lord.

Visitors will also be able to see the icon of the Virgin Galaktotrophousa (the Milk-Giver), from Saint Sava’s hermitage in Karyes. According to later tradition, the icon was painted by Saint Luke the Apostle and Evangelist, and Saint Sava received it during his journey to the Holy Land at the Monastery of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified in Jerusalem, together with the staff of Saint Sabbas and the icon of the Virgin Trojeručica, in accordance with the testament of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, founder of the monastery in the sixth century.

Visitors will also be able to see what many consider to be the most beautiful icon of Christ Pantocrator, a masterpiece of Byzantine painting dating from around 1260, as well as the famous icon of Saint Sava and Saint Simeon from the 15th century, whose iconographic details place it firmly within that era.

The exhibition will also feature a replica of the abbot’s staff of Hilandar, a gift from Alexios III Angelos from Constantinople dating from 1199, crafted from ebony, jasper, silver, gilding, and other precious and semi-precious stones.

Saint Sava received the Hilandar abbot’s staff from the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos during his stay in the imperial capital in 1199, as a symbol confirming that the newly established Serbian monastery and its brotherhood on Mount Athos had the right independently to appoint future elected abbots of the monastery.

The exhibition will also display a replica of the staff of Saint Sabbas the Sanctified, which Saint Sava received at the Great Lavra of Saint Sabbas during his first pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1229, as well as a replica of the icon of the Virgin Trojeručica, regarded as the palladium of all Serbian lands and to which the cathedral church in Skopje was dedicated.

Holy Tradition teaches that the icon belonged to Saint John of Damascus, whose severed right hand was miraculously healed after praying before it. Saint Sava brought this icon from Damascus, and it later spent a period at Studenica Monastery before miraculously arriving on Mount Athos in 1661, in front of Hilandar Monastery.

(Telegraf.rs, 13.05.2026)

https://www.telegraf.rs/vesti/srbija/4324873-spc-najvece-srpske-svetinje-sa-svete-gore-danas-u-beogradu