Editor’s note: Today marks the 163rd anniversary of the ending of the Battle of Chancellorsville, the principal engagement of the bloody and destructive Chancellorsville Campaign during the American War Between the States. So over the next few weeks, we will be publishing an insightful three-part series from our friend Walt Garlington. So without further ado, here is part 1.
By Walt Garlington
The South, like any nation (and perhaps more than some due to her peculiar history), has studied her past to understand better who she is and how she ought to live in the future. Certain events will reveal those truths to nations more clearly than others. In the South, one of these revelatory events was the Battle of Chancellorsville of 1863, during which her great hero, General Stonewall Jackson, was mortally wounded.
In Serbia, by the mysterious providence of God, a similar battle of consequence also took place some 470 years prior to Chancellorsville, on the field of Kosovo, during which Serbia lost her great king and hero, Tsar Lazar (‘tsar’ signifies the title of ‘emperor’ or ‘king’ in the Slavic lands).
Both battles were turning points in the lives of these two nations, but each went in the opposite direction of the other: Serbia chose the Kingdom of Heaven, while the Confederacy chose the Kingdom of Earth. But through the experience of godly Serbia, and with the assistance of other Slavic writers, the South may now perceive how she also may enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
I. Serbia: Choosing the Heavenly Kingdom
The people of Serbia received the Holy Orthodox Faith in the ninth century A.D. from the missionaries Sts Cyril and Methodius (The Illustrated History of the Serbs, quoted in Fr Matthew Raphael Johnson, Heavenly Serbia and the Medieval Idea, p. 21), who also are the saints responsible for enlightening Russia with the Christian faith. The grace of Our Lord brought forth fruit, as seen in the blossoming of holy saints among Serbia’s people (Notes 9-11 of St Nikolai Velimirovich, The Serbian People as a Servant of God, p. 41 of the html version). However, the mature nation of Serbia did not arise until Tsar Stevan Nemanja (later St Simeon) brought peace and unity to the feuding Serbian clans with the indispensable help of his son St Sava, the Archbishop of Serbia, in the late twelfth century A.D.
The Serbia that flowered from the labors of Tsar Stevan and St Sava was avowedly Christian. Its goal was and remains Theodulia — voluntary service to God — by every part of society: the Church, the state, and all the people together (Serbian People, p. 7). ‘Sava made a crystal clear expression of this at the Zica Monastery on the occasion of his brother Stevan’s coronation as king of Serbia. In his sermons at that time he constantly emphasized in the presence of the king, the nobles, and the people, two indisputable realities: first that faith is the only blessed foundation for the life of an individual, for the life of a society, and for the organization of a state; and second, that the king, all the nobles, all the people as well as the clergy must serve the faith, or rather the Founder of the faith, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-Begotten Son of God, so that we might all be called sons of God and enter into the heavenly kingdom’ (p. 9).
St Sava did not spend much time focusing on neat arrangements of social and political institutions but continuously emphasized the importance of faith: ‘Why did the wise Sava not speak at that time about putting the individual home and the royal palace in order, about organizing the state, fitting out the military, and assigning tasks and duties? Why not this, instead of speaking only about faith again and again? Because faith is truth, and truth is light, and without light we can see neither our path nor our goal, nor can we discern a true brother from a false brother, nor can we know whence we have come or where we are heading, nor why we live or why we die, nor whom we are serving, nor how and in what way we shall perform our service.
‘Truth is the primary and principle foundation, everything else will come of itself. But truth, that is the Gospel of Christ, is faith in Christ. In accordance with the words of Christ Himself: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness”’ (p. 10).
St Sava also knew there could not be a strict separation between Church and state without a disastrous outcome: ‘Whenever the Church was separated from the state, either the Church or the state or both stood to suffer. A separated Church and state implies service to two separate lords. And since there is only one sole true Lord whom one can conscientiously and honestly serve, i.e., the Lord God, it follows that one of the alienated and separated institutions, be it Church or state, must be serving God’s adversary, the devil’ (p. 13).
Tsar Stevan for his part imbued Serbia with an extraordinary example that her future kings and rulers would follow, one of servant leadership and renunciation of the world: ‘All of Nemanja’s struggles and all his aims focused on his desire to unite the Serbian people and create a single Serbian state — not a secular people, as modern historians explain, but a Christ-loving people, which would serve Christ, and a holy state, which would also serve Christ.
‘It was all to serve Christ just as he himself served until his last breath on his reed mat at Hilandar Monastery [Tsar Stevan freely gave up his crown to his son and became a monk late in life, taking the name Simeon (Note 12, pgs. 41-2). – W.G.]. His patriotism was an Orthodox Christian patriotism, and his state was a state that served God.
‘He set a seal on this fundamental concept of his by putting his sword into its sheath and by his death beneath the cross of Christ. For the sword is nothing without the cross, and the cross is ultimately victorious even without the sword. Nemanja never went to war with a mere sword without a cross, as the churches built by him to fulfill oaths testify’ (p. 7).
Such was the aim and tenor of life in Serbia between the time of Sts Simeon and Sava and St Lazar in the fourteenth century (and afterwards), though difficulties were, naturally enough, encountered at times. In St Lazar, nevertheless, the work of Sts Simeon and Sava brought forth its greatest flowering (Fr Daniel Rogich, Great-Martyr Tsar Lazar of Serbia, p. 6). ‘Yet who ever served Christ God with such holiness and righteousness as that amazing Lazar of Kosovo? Not only was he canonized a saint, but his wife, the Tsaritsa Militsa, and his son Stevan Visoki (Stephen the Tall) were canonized as well — a vine sprung from a holy root.
‘He performed all the works pleasing to God like the members of the Nemanjic dynasty, and ruled, or more accurately, served in times more difficult than the times of the Nemanjic dynasty.
‘He built many ecclesiastical foundations, of which Ravanica, Lazarica, and Gornjak are still in use today. He renovated the monastery of St. Roman from its ruins. He was a great benefactor of the holy places on the Holy Mountain of Athos. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, Christ’s tomb. He was a father to orphans and a protector of the destitute.
‘And above all, he laid down his life on the field of Kosovo for the venerable cross and golden freedom. For this the Serbian people have cherished him and praised him in verse, and God has glorified him by making him a saint and crowning him with a double crown, as His servant and as His martyr (Serbian People, pgs. 18-9).
Fr Rogich resumes, ‘What was amazing is that prior to the Battle of Kosovo (1389), Holy Prince Lazar was able to bring peace and order in a divine manner both to the civil and ecclesiastical spheres in the entire Byzantine Empire. It was as if he was preparing the Balkan peoples for the upcoming terror of the Ishmaelite-Hagarenes [Ottoman Muslim Turks – W.G.]. The Orthodox people were now ready for their Golgotha. . . . The Orthodox soul of the people, through Holy Lazar, was now united spiritually and was ready to make the final commitment to Christ, unto the shedding of their own blood, according to the Serbian saying, za Krst Chasni i Slobodu Zlatnu (“for the Honorable Cross and Golden Freedom”)’ (Great-Martyr Tsar Lazar, p. 13).
The Turks were utterly devastating the surrounding countryside. After several years of fighting in which the Serbs lost more and more territory to the Turks, the choice was made between the two nations to fight a decisive battle on the Field of Kosovo, ‘the cradle of Serbian Orthodox civilization’ (pgs. 13-4, 16 (quote)).
Later, the South too would fight her most important battle against a similarly cruel and bloodthirsty foe in the cradle of her own civilization, Virginia.
Before the battle was to begin, the Tsar beheld a vision. A heavenly messenger came to him with a question:
‘Lazar! Lazar! Tsar of noble family,
Which kingdom is it that you long for most?
Will you choose a heavenly crown today?
Or will you choose an earthly crown?
If you choose the earth then saddle horses,
Tighten girths — have your knights put on
Their swords and make a dawn attack against
The Turks: your enemy will be destroyed.
But if you choose the skies then build a church —
O, not of stone but out of silk and velvet —
Gather up your forces take the bread and wine,
For all shall perish, perish utterly,
And you, O Tsar, shall perish with them.’
And when the Tsar has heard those holy words
He meditates, thinks every kind of thought:
‘O, Dearest God, what shall I do, and how?
Shall I choose the earth? Shall I choose
The skies? And if I choose the kingdom,
If I choose an earthly kingdom now,
Earthly kingdoms are such passing things —
A heavenly kingdom, raging in the dark, endures eternally.'”— ‘The Downfall of the Kingdom of Serbia’, The Battle of Kosovo: Serbian Epic Poems, pgs. 20-1 of the html version
In the end, Holy Lazar chose the Heavenly Kingdom for himself and for his nation. This is the great turning point in Serbian history. As foretold, her army was destroyed by the Turks. King Lazar fought heroically; ‘according to the Tronoški Chronicle, “he had been inflicted with sixteen wounds when they saddled him on his third horse, because two had already been slain from beneath him”’ (St Justin Popovich, ‘The Life of the Holy and Great Martyr Tsar Lazar of Serbia’, The Mystery and Meaning of the Battle of Kosovo, p. 27). But he too gave his life as a martyr on the day of battle, Tuesday, 15 June 1389: ‘By detaching himself from the earthen body and the earthly kingdom for the sake of Christ, he saved his soul and the soul of his people, obtained the immortal Kingdom of Heaven and brought to God a multitude of Martyrs’ (p. 29).
Yet this was not the end of Serbia in the world. She has continued on, walking a path of suffering and purification, living under a series of oppressors — Turks and Austrians, Nazis and Communists. And now the United States and NATO. And so it will continue until her spiritual renewal is completed (St Nikolai Velimirovich, ‘The Tsar’s Testament’, Mystery and Meaning, pgs. 75-6). But to her calling of Theodulia — sealed at the Battle of Kosovo — she has remained true, to which St Nikolai testifies in his sketch of Serbia’s Christian history:
‘The highest form of drama is tragedy. The history of the Serbs is all tragic. The path of the Serbian people has led them along the edge of a sheer cliff above an abyss. Only a sleepwalker could travel this path without fear, for the horrors on that path are beyond number.
‘Had the Serbs gazed down into the chasm over which they were walking, they would have become terrified and would have slipped and fallen. But they looked upwards, toward heaven, to God who ordains destiny. Keeping their faith in Him, they kept up their pace unconsciously or barely semiconsciously. Consequently, they succeeded in passing over the path along such a cliff as no Caucasian people [i.e., people of the Caucasus region, not a reference to skin color – W.G.] has ever traversed to this day.
‘Sometimes the Serbian people would lose their footing and begin to slide down, but they managed to climb back up onto the narrow trail on the precipitous ledge. The Serbian people knew that there was only one correct path, the path of their destiny and salvation.
‘Some Serbs lost their footing, began to slide, and did not make it back up to the trail. They plunged to their deaths. But the majority of the Serbian people always managed to make it back to their path – the tragic path of suffering and resurrection, the path of Christ, with whom the Serbs had made a covenant of service’ (Serbian People, p. 27).
Feature image: Painting of the Battle of Kosovo, dated 1870, by Adam Stefanović. Prince Lazar is seen dying with his horse. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Walt Garlington is a chemical engineer turned writer and editor of the website Confiteri: A Southern Perspective. This longtime Southern Baptist, then Anglican, was united to the Orthodox Church in 2012 and makes his home in Louisiana where he attends a GOA parish.
Follow Us