Relics, miracles and furta sacra: A contribution to the study of Serbo-Bulgarian relations in the 1230s
Authors: Marjanovic-Dusanic Smilja 
Published: October 2009

A contribution to the study of Serbo-Bulgarian relations in the 1230s The enquiry into the cult of relics and its manifestations such as miracle working, transfer of mortal remains and the act of translatio that involves the topos of furta sacra relies on two lives of St Sava of Serbia, one penned by Domentijan (Domentianus), the other by Teodosije (Theodosius). The hagiographic episodes most relevant to this enquiry are certainly those describing Sava's stay in Tirnovo, his death (1236) and the translation of his remains to his homeland (1237). The narrative about the future saint's stay and death in Tirnovo gives conscious hints of the hero's sanctity using various hagiographic devices. Especially interesting to us is the account of the miracle Sava worked in Tirnovo while officiating the Epiphany service at the church of the Forty Martyrs. According to our analysis, the reference to the Epiphany service and the association of the miracle with that particular feast are certainly not an accident. The ideology of the Second Bulgarian Empire attached great importance to the epic victory over the Romaioi at the Battle of Tryavna in 1190, which was commemorated annually on the Day of Epiphany. The Byzantine historians Niketas Choniates and George Akropolites report that the Bulgarians seized the imperial insignia during the battle. It is irrelevant whether Sava's two hagiographers were aware of the importance of the feast or simply reiterated the well-known information about the service celebrated on that day at the church of the Forty Martyrs; what is quite certain is that the great honour of officiating the service-a celebration pregnant with symbolism-was bestowed upon the most distinguished guest and that it was then that, we believe not at all by chance, his miracle-working power was manifested in public-in front of the Bulgarian tsar, all clergy and the notables. As a natural consequence of the power of working miracles manifested in one's lifetime, the holy body of Sava, who passed away shortly afterwards, joined the most highly treasured relics of the Second Bulgarian Empire deposited in the church of the Forty Martyrs. The decision of Bulgarian tsar John II Asen to have Sava buried in his own foundation dedicated to the Forty Martyrs seems to have conveyed unequivocal symbolic messages. Not only that the hagiographer uses the topos of Christ-like haste, a quality of the ideal ruler, to depict the tsar's devout haste (to have Sava's tomb built in stone and marked with imperial insignia) but he also employs the device of connecting the tsar's actions with the well-established pattern of the ruler standing firm in the faith of Christ to build an imago pietatis as well known and required in that particular place in the text. The latter obviously helps the holy remains-referred to in both hagiographies much before the reference to the revelation of hero's sanctity through the elevation of his incorrupt body-to obtain the status of relic. In that respect, the power of sepulchral dust constitutes a distinctive feature of Sava's sanctity-it testifies to the miraculous power of the place itself even after the body was removed, continuing until the ban placed on Sava's cult after the death of John Asen (1241). The ultimate proof of sanctity is the discovery of the incorrupt body after its elevatio. That is exactly what happened, after the holy one himself had appeared in the tsar's dream prompting the translation and thus the elevation of the body from the first grave. The apparition of the holy one in the form of 'a terrifying vision' came as a consequence of the request made by the Serbian side: king Vladislav, the tsar's son-in-law, had come to Tirnovo to solicit Sava's return to Serbia. As the Bulgarian side was unwilling to part with the prestigious relics, preparations for their translation began clandestinely and in great haste. To describe the events that ensued, Domentijan, the writer of the earlier of Sava's two lives, uses a recognizable narrative: the account of the furtum sacrum is placed in the framework of a parallel he was familiar with. Domentijan uses an interesting metaphor to offset the vague circumstances surrounding the event. By likening Sava's relics to the epitome of the most precious relic - the icon of the Virgin with child, well known after the apocrypha concerning the birth of Christ, he in fact uses the language of apocrypha to bypass several important topoi contained in the narrative of furta sacra. The motif in question is that of the clandestine translation of relics amidst great fear and haste and the flight from the city (the 'Persian' story used by John of Damascus in his Homilies on nativity). The purpose of the hagiographic story is to function as a double parallel. On the one hand, the holy one's relics are likened to the oldest icon taken in its symbolic, apotropaic meaning-as the shield of the fatherland and a sign of God's grace-and on the other, the story is a framework, a recognizable model of finding a parallel, used by the hagiographer to evade further clarification of the circumstances and details of the famed furtum sacrum. It is for this reason that Domentijan's emphasis on the motif of likening appears quite expectable: 'in the same way the children of this Holy One, overwhelmed by great fear and in great haste, fled secretly from the city of Tirnovo'. Teodosije's account is much more straightforward: quoting the words of the Bulgarian tsar, he overtly accuses the Serbian king of having stolen the holy one's relics and the Bulgarians notables of having been bribed, and his account seems to match the reality much more. Viewed in the context of analysis of the symbolic language of political messages, the accounts of the two hagiographers become a telling testimony to the multilayeredness of medieval texts and to the possibility of their various interpretations.