International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Aleksandar Z. Savić
University of Belgrade, Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade, Serbia; 
[e-mail]
In the Footsteps of Moses: St Sava of Serbia’s Sinai Pilgrimage
In recent years, the question of pilgrim-saints has been addressed by medievalists in a number 
of scholarly works, notably those pertaining to the field of Byzantine studies. The reason why 
peregrinations of holy men and women are never deprived of academic interest lies in the peculiar 
character of the relevant source material, which offers more than enough space for innovative 
methodological approaches. In the most general sense, travel could be defined as movement within 
the confines of a particular time-space continuum; in hagiography, however, both these categories – 
spatial and temporal – are more often than not bent and distorted in order to fit the refined hagiological 
bedrock of the narrative. What this premise implies is that behind the accounts of pilgrimage made 
by saintly figures there is always an underlying meaning which, at times, relates to the very essence of 
their cults. The present paper aims at implementing this theoretical framework in the case of St Sava 
of Serbia (c. 1175–1236), who, according to his 
vitae
, ventured to the Holy Land twice in his lifetime. 
Of course, since a comprehensive insight into his travels would demand a study of much larger scope, 
we shall limit our inquiry to a single episode, one which recounts the saint’s pilgrimage to Mount Sinai.

---

841
Not unlike other holy mountains of the Eastern Christian world, Sinai comprises three sacred 
foci, namely the bottom, the peak and the space in between that simultaneously connects and 
separates the former two; moreover, each of the three segments is reminiscent of the momentous 
events of the Old Testament, particularly those related to the prophets Moses and Elijah. For the 
pilgrim, the act of ascending the top of the mountain involved deeply symbolical implications 
– in line with the influential teachings of John Klimax, the way up was interpreted as the path 
towards spiritual perfection and closer understanding of the divine. In this respect, it is clear why 
the hagiographer would shape the image of his saintly protagonist after Moses. Indeed, Sava’s Sinai 
pilgrimage is depicted through a succession of references to the Biblical exemplar, in a narrative 
structure that encompasses the elements of sacred landscape, liturgy and Scripture. The parallel, 
drawn masterfully by the author of Sava’s first 
vita
, rests on two main points – the experience of 
theophany at the holy summit, and the fact that, just as Moses was the leader of the original Israel, so 
was Sava the spiritual guide of the new “Chosen people”, i. e. the Serbs, whose souls came under his 
care when he became the first archbishop of the Serbian Church. However, although during most of 
the journey the analogy between Sava and Moses was based on the former’s endeavour to emulate 
the actions of the latter, its dynamic took a significant turn as the saint reached the mountain peak. 
To wit, he who had previously been following in the prophet’s footsteps has now come to surpass 
him – as an adherent to both Testaments, that is to say, a Christian, Sava was able to perceive a 
clearer, more direct vision of God, the sort of which could never have been bestowed upon Moses.
The “new Moses paradigm”, as elaborated in the original 
vita 
of St Sava allows a glimpse into 
the purpose of contemporary Serbian Athonite hagiography and the intellectual world of its authors. 
Several important topics, some of them with considerable ideological consequences, are addressed 
in this segment of Sava’s peregrinations alone – discovering the Holy Land and its sanctuaries, 
promoting the collective identity of the Serbs, and, finally, defining the hagiological layers of one of 
the most revered cults of the Serbian Middle Ages.