Life
Saint Arsenios was the second Archbishop of the Serbian Orthodox Church and one of the most significant ecclesiastical saints of the Serbian people. He is entered in the synaxarion and was canonized by the Serbian Church in 1292, and is remembered as a worthy successor and faithful continuer of the work of Saint Sava — the founder of Serbian ecclesiastical independence.
Arsenios was from his youth a close companion of Saint Sava, who formed him in the spirit of asceticism and church responsibility. According to tradition and historical sources, he was Sava’s personal disciple and close collaborator in organizing the young Serbian Archbishopric. Saint Sava, before departing on his final pilgrimage to the Holy Land, designated him as his successor, having recognized in him a man of firm faith, theological wisdom, and administrative capability.
After Saint Sava’s repose in Tărnovo (January 14, 1235), Arsenios ascended the archepiscopal throne in Žiča — the first cathedral church of the Serbian Archbishopric, which Saint Sava had built. He governed the Church for a full thirty years, from 1233 to 1263, during a period that was simultaneously one of growth and independence for the Serbian state and of ecclesiastical consolidation.
One of the greatest achievements of Arsenios’s episcopal activity was the translation of the relics of Saint Sava from Tărnovo to Serbia. Saint Sava had been buried in Tărnovo (in Bulgaria), where he died, and his body rested in a church there until Arsenios, with the approval of the Bulgarian king, succeeded in obtaining the transfer of the holy relics to the Serbian lands. The relics were solemnly brought to the newly built church at Mileševa — the foundation of King Vladislav — and placed in a specially prepared shrine. This translation, accomplished between 1237 and 1239, was of enormous spiritual and political significance: the Serbian people received in the heart of their land a supreme pastor and protector, and Mileševa from that time became one of the holiest pilgrimage sites.
Arsenios also continued Sava’s work in the legislative ordering of the Church, attended to discipline in the dioceses and monasteries, and strove to preserve the spiritual and ecclesiastical integrity of the Serbian people at a time when political circumstances — changing rulers, external pressures — might have undermined the authority of the church institution. His wisdom, patience, and spiritual authority were the strength of the Church in that unstable era.
He reposed around 1266 and was buried in Peć, where the seat of the Archbishopric had been transferred from Žiča around 1253 for security reasons. The Serbian Church canonized him in 1292 and entered his name in the menologion as a holy hierarch and servant of God, whose intercession is invoked on October 28 by the Julian calendar. The Church glorifies him as an apostle of peace and guardian of the Sava tradition.
Tropar (Tone 4)
Faithful to the heritage of Sava, O blessed Arsenios, thou didst translate the relics of thy teacher to the Serbian land. Thou didst guard the Church in troubled times as a wise helmsman of Christ’s ship. Intercede with Christ God that thy people may have peace and that He may grant our souls great mercy.
Kontakion (Tone 3)
Successor of Sava and servant of Christ, enthroned in Peć, O Father Arsenios, thou didst enlighten the Serbian people with the holy tradition and didst give the relics of the First Archbishop to the Serbian nation as a gift. Cease not to intercede for us before the throne of the Most High.