The speech of His Holiness Patriarch Porphyrios of Serbia is delivered at the Holy Liturgy served on Savindan 2024 at the Church of St. Sava on Vračar.
Dear spiritual children of St. Sava, may today be joyful and blessed, may today's feast be happy and blessed, for here we celebrate him, our spiritual father and shepherd. We honor the one who once and for all paved the path our nation has walked for eight centuries, the one who defined the ultimate goal and the scope of the path we are on, the path that leads to eternal life. All bathed in Christ, all immersed in Christ, Sava defined once and for all the Orthodox path as the path of our people, as the path that leads to eternal life. Therefore, for eight centuries, all Orthodox Serbs, from the youngest age to the oldest heads, from the most ordinary common man to royal crowns, all offer prayers to the Holy Father Sava on this day, that he may be the one who, together with us, covering his people in prayer, offers our sighs, our intentions, desires and needs before the throne of the living God, His Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ.
Many wonder how it is that he, the God-pleaser, for centuries gathers in one place all those who are marked with the Serbian name, and how it is so it turns out that he is actually the first and last name of our family. The answer is simple, brothers and sisters. Although at first glance, maybe because of all that he did for our nation, many people think that he is a magnet that gathers us around the name of St. Sava. Many may think that because he was a great builder - because he really was, because he built holy places, churches and magnificent temples in the land where his and our people lived, but also beyond the area where our people live and lived - because he built temples for the glory of God; or because of this, someone would think that he built bridges with both East and West, that he established relations with Rome but also with the Islamic world; or it may have a lot to do with the fact that he established legislation in our country; or that he built schools, hospitals, and roads... Yes, these are all the facts and outlines of his character for which we gather today and glorify his name. Yes, indeed, in all these things St. Sava was great and unsurpassed from his days to our own. Yes, indeed, that is why we praise and glorify him, but that is not what unites us primarily around his name.
We gather around his name, brothers and sisters, because he gathered his entire being around the Priceless Treasure, around the Priceless Pearl, around the Cornerstone of the history of the human race, because he all gathered mind, heart and body around Christ and in Christ. We glorify him because God - because through his exploits, prayer, reverence for the grace of the Holy Spirit, repentance, and all the virtues of the Gospel and the God-man gathered in Christ - sanctified him, because God shone His grace through him and in him. This is why we gather around St. Sava and in St. Sava, and why he is above all our name and family name. Precisely because he was a transformed man, a man of prayer, a man of faith, St. Sava knew how to imprint his and God's seal on his every step, in everything he did and built, so that it would be of lasting value to our people.
Holiness, brothers and sisters, in his time, was, besides everything else that was necessary, the most necessary thing of all. As it was then, so it is today. Apart from everything else that man needs, apart from earthly bread and everything that symbolizes this earthly bread, first of all and most of all man needs heavenly bread, he needs the grace of God, he needs holiness. It needs virtue, it needs goodness. We need to have virtue, we need to be good, good in the Gospel virtues, in the fulfillment of the laws of God and the words of Christ. When we do that do, then we are truly worthy of the name of St. Sava, the name of his successors, and then we follow his path. That is why every Savindan, brothers and sisters, is a feast of our people. It is a day when our hearts and minds are enlightened, enlightened before the grace of the Holy Spirit. It is a magnetic resonance in which we realize who and what we are. In that moment we have no doubt about who we are, what we are, where we come from, and what path we should follow. In that moment, standing before St. Sava, we are actually standing before the living God, before Christ, before the mirror, before the criterion, and we see clearly and plainly whether we are following the path of St. Sava, the path he is leading us on, and it is the path that leads to eternal life. Then we see if we are not following a path that is alien to St. Sava, alien to Christ, alien to our salvation, alien to our being.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, today, as every day, but especially today at Savindan, may the Lord help us to remember that we are holy, because then we belong to Christ. The primary sign of holiness is faith in Christ, because St. Sava did everything in faith. And so everything he did is invariably, it is valuable to us. Let us examine our heart, look inside ourselves, ask ourselves what our faith is. And we will clearly recognize it from the outside, because St. Sava would say today, as he himself did, that we are to what we need most of all is faith, and that out of this faith, first of all we need to be reconciled as true brothers among ourselves, so that we may have peace in our family, so that we may have peace with those with whom we work in certain collectives, so that there may be peace in the schools, so that there may be peace in our society, so that there may be no insurmountable polarizations, so that hatred may not be the last word that defines us. St. Sava reconciled his brothers because he knew that if there is conflict between brothers, there is no peace for any of them, then each individual becomes easy prey for possible hunters of human souls, becomes prey that others feed on. This is what St. Sava would probably say today, holding a meeting among us: Brothers, calm down! Forgive one another! Listen to one another! Have confidence in one another! When you have sinned against one another, ask for forgiveness, because only in such evangelical thinking will the spirit of St. Sava live, the grace of God and the Lord Himself will live and be present among us!
Brothers and sisters, let the prayers of St. Sava and him personally be with us every day as our reminder, as our companion, but also as our prayer book before the Lord, so that together with him we may have joy in our souls, peace in our hearts and holiness of mind, so that we may then truly and rightly, bearing the name of St. Sava. Sava, glorify the One God in Trinity, Father, and Son, and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever. ages. Amen!
Share:
