Belgrade, May 30, 2025
Photo: spc.rs
The city of Belgrade celebrates its slava every year on the great feast of the Ascension of the Lord with the Divine Liturgy and a grand procession through the city streets.
This year, the procession was blessed with the presence of the hand and staff of St. Sava, the first Archbishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
“The hand that has been blessing and embracing the Serbian people for more than eight centuries, and which is the only part of St. Sava’s relics remaining with us after their burning at Vračar on the fateful April 27, 1594,” arrived in the capital from Mileševa Monastery the afternoon before. St. Sava’s staff is kept in the Historical Museum in Belgrade.
Photo: spc.rs
The feast day began with the Divine Liturgy, presided over by His Holiness Patriarch Porfirije in the Belgrade Church of the Ascension, concelebrated by three Serbian hierarchs and a host of clergy. Hundreds of Orthodox faithful filled the church, having come to celebrate the patronal feast and venerate the hand of St. Sava, reports the Serbian Orthodox Church.
Following the service, the slava bread was blessed and a memorial service was held for the Belgrade citizens who in the courtyard of the Ascension Church during the Nazi bombings on April 6, 1941.
Photo: spc.rs
Then the hierarchs, clergy, monastics, and thousands of faithful set out on the annual Spasovdan procession under the ringing of the Ascension Church bells, with representatives of various religious and civil associations.
The prayer walk concluded at the St. Sava Church, where Pat. Porfirije served a moleben to the great saint.
The Serbian primate offered a homily on the blessing of St. Sava’s relics and intercessions:
Photo: spc.rs
It is precisely this holy and honorable hand of St. Sava, our hand, that guarantees that St. Sava is physically always, and God willing forever, among us. It brings us inaccessibly to ourselves; confronts us with personal shortcomings; directs and brings us to one another; when necessary, lovingly rebukes; joins our often divided brotherly hands, as it once did for Stefan and Vukan; caresses, embraces and comforts; shows the only path and method of salvation from life’s meaninglessness and from enchantment with the allurements of this passing world, directing us, as John the Baptist once directed the Jewish people to repentance… And let us all forgive everyone—the hand of St. Sava, sanctified by Christ’s love and His grace, calls us to this.
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