SERBIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND ARTS

INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

LV 2024

BALCANICA
V. G. Pavlović, Ninety Years of the Institute for Balkan Studies
• L. Diers, Reading the Subtext – Site Location and Settlement
Systems in Roman Moesia • O. Ligorio, Antrešelj. An Early
Romanian Remnant in Serbo-Croatian • E. Adamou & A.
N. Sobolev, The Atlas of the Balkan Linguistic Area program
• P. Hristov & T. Manova, Urbanisation, Migration,
Depopulation and Virtual Ritual Community – The Village
Kurban as a Shared Meal • D. Popović, The Landscape of
the Monastic Endeavour: The Choices of St Sava of Serbia • M.
Bacci, Latin-Byzantine Artistic Interactions and the Church of
Saint Basil in Mržep (Montenegro) • S. G. Markovich, Debating
Balkan Commonalities: Is There a Common Balkan Culture? •
A. Basciani, Beyond Nationalism? The Inter-war Period and
Some Features of the Complex Transformation of Southeastern
Europe • M. Vartejanu-Joubert, Ritual Objects for the
Feast of Sukkot: Theoretical Analysis of the Talmudic Prescriptions
and Some of their Ethnographical Achievements in the Balkans
• G. Valtchinova, From “Religion” to “Spirituality” in
Socialist Bulgaria: Vanga, Nicholas Roerich, and the Mystique of
History • N. Lackenby, You are what you don’t eat – Fasting,
Ethics, and Ethnography, in Serbia and Beyond g

ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE FOR BALKAN STUDIES

ISSN 0350-7653
UDC 930.85(4-12) BELGRADE 2024 eISSN 2406-0801
 https://doi.org/10.2298/BALC2455099P
UDC 316.74:2
21-18
Original scholarly work
Danica Popović* http://www.balcanica.rs
Institute for Balkan Studies
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Belgrade, Serbia
retired

The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour:

The Choices of St Sava of Serbia

Abstract: This paper approaches the question of the selection of site intended for monastic
ascetic pursuits taking the example of St Sava of Serbia. Sava’s choices were based on his
masterful knowledge of Byzantine eremitic tradition and his own substantial monastic
experience. This is evidenced by the hesychasteria he founded: he gave physical form to
the concept of locus amoenus in the Karyes kellion of the monastery of Hilandar, while
the concept of locus horridus was embodied in the cave hermitages of the monasteries of
Studenica and Mileševa. The methodological framework of this research is informed by
current landscape studies.
Keywords: St Sava of Serbia, Karyes kellion, Studenica hermitage, hermitages of Mileševa,
monastic desert, landscape studies.

I n modern scholarly discourse the landscape functions as a complex and poly-

valent concept open to diverse approaches and interpretations. Most of the
more recent and quite extensive work on the subject – particularly rich in sub-
stance since the 1980s – is predicated on the premise that the phenomena des-
ignated as “natural landscape” and “cultural landscape” are inseparable, i.e. on the
view that landscape is both the “object” and “mode of perception”. The fact that
what we call nature is not only physical reality but also a particular idea points
to a complex interplay between landscape and man, i.e. between the “object” and
its perception and interpretation. It is understandable then that more recent ap-
proaches in landscape studies are focused particularly on various practices associ-
ated with nature which, shaping and transforming both nature and man through
dynamic processes, result in an organic interweave of the material and spiritual
worlds.1

* [email protected]
1 D. Cosgrove, “Landscape and the European Sense of Sight – Eying Nature”. In The
Handbook of Cultural Geography, eds. K. Anderson et al. (London: Sage, 2003), 249–
268; for an exhaustive historical overview of the research and relevant results, see Chris-
100 Balcanica LV (2024)

A specific and quite telling medieval understanding of space saw God,

man and nature as intrinsically interconnected. Even early Christian exegetes
were proponents of a theology of nature that rested on the belief that the land-
scapes that make up earth are parts of a single whole – the cosmos, God’s perfect
creation. To the Byzantines, natural features such as oceans and rivers, moun-
tains and deserts, wild and tame places were not mere geographical concepts but
parts of a complex topographic system of symbols and a reflection of heavenly
reality. These topoi/symbols, as rightly emphasized in Veronica della Dora’s ex-
ceptional study, operate in complementary pairs – wild and domesticated na-
ture, for example – and in order for them to be understood properly they have
to be looked at in their totality.2 In other words, the landscapes of this world
are filled with meaning, and their sacred prototypes are to be found in the Bible,
patristic and ascetic literature, hagiography. The preeminent of them were the
places endowed with particular qualities, those that possessed a “spiritual mag-
netism”, an immanent miraculous power.3 Such, above all, were spaces associated
with the events and protagonists of Sacred History and the feats of renowned
saints. In medieval belief, firmly rooted in the theological postulates and popular
piety alike, these sacred places could be renewed and “reconstructed” time and
again – all across the Christian world and in very different geographical settings
– without losing their spiritual essence. What they had in common were charis-
matic properties, i.e. a symbolic and associative similarity to the traditional topoi
of Christian sacred topography such as the illustrious deserts and theophanic
mountains, the pillar-like dwellings of stylites and the mystical caves of radical
ascetics.4 This delineates the conceptual framework for interpreting the phe-
nomenon of monastic deserts as the landscapes of the ascetic endeavour and the
supreme Christian accomplishment.
St Sava of Serbia’s conception of the desert and its landscape – which is
the main topic of this paper – may be pieced together relatively well not only

tian Pilgrimage, Landscape and Heritage. Journeying to the Sacred, eds. A. Maddrell et al.
(New York: Routledge, 2015), 6–7; V. della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred in
Byzantium (Cambridge: University Press, 2016).
2 della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 26–28 and passim.
3 J. Preston, “Spiritual Magnetism: an Organising Principle for the Study of Pilgrim-
age”. In Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage, ed. A. Moranis (Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1992), 31–46; M. Winkelmann and J. Dubisch, “Introduction: the
Anthropology of Pilgrimage”. In Pilgrimage and Healing, eds. M. Winkelmann and J.
Dubisch, (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005), ix–xxxvi; A. Lidov, ed. Hierotopy.
The Creation of Sacral Spaces in Byzantium and Medieval Russia (Moscow: Indrik, 2006).
4 della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 118–120; examples from Byzantine
and Serbian hagiographic heritages have been analysed by I. Špadijer, “The Symbolism
of Space in Medieval Hagiography”, Cyrilo-Methodian Studies 21 (2012), 300–308.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 101

from the surviving written and material sources but also owing to the very stim-
ulating scholarly work which has contributed greatly, especially in recent times,
to understanding this important concept of medieval asceticism. In brief, the
desert is a distinctive kind of space, remote from the world, where the hermit,
struggling to transcend the natural limitations of the human body and renounce
all earthly values, passes through the stages of ascetic progress towards attaining
true virtue, i.e. man’s original godlikeness. The desert no doubt is an ambivalent
concept. It can be, literally and symbolically, a locus amoenus, an idyllic landscape
comparable to a lush garden as a metaphor for the otherworldly heavenly abode.
It seems, however, that it figures more frequently as a locus terribilis – a harsh
and virtually inaccessible landscape, perilous and menacing, inhabited by wild
beasts and haunted by demonic creatures. It is a telling fact – confirmed by the
examples from the Bible and patristic and monastic literature – that God reveals
himself to his chosen ones at dramatic and charismatic places such as deserts,
mountains and caves. The desert, whatever its physical form, was a monastic
battleground, a space that made the ascetics face major existential challenges. In
dealing with them, the hermits followed the highest role models – the biblical
desert dwellers, such as the prophet Elijah, St John the Forerunner and Christ
himself, and their illustrious continuators, the desert fathers, with St Anthony
the Great as their founding figure.5
The relationship to the monastic landscape in the medieval Serbian lands
may be reconstructed in two ways: based on the written sources and on the
natural settings of churches, monasteries or eremitic dwellings. The chronologi-
cal framework for the topic of this paper is the reign of the first Nemanjić rulers,
i.e. the formative, creative period of the late twelfth and early decades of the thir-
teenth century when the foundations of the Serbian state and church were laid
and the principles underpinning these institutions formulated. Needless to say,
the pivotal role in that remarkable undertaking was played by St Sava of Serbia,

5 A selection of literature: A. Guillaumont, “La conception du désert chez les moines

d’Egypte”, Aux origines du monachisme chrétien (Paris: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, Spiri-
tualité Orientale 30, 1979), 67–87; J. E. Goehring, Ascetics, Society and Desert. Studies
in Early Egyptian Monasticism (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1999); A-M.
Talbot, “Les saintes montagnes à Byzance”. In Le sacré et son inscription dans l’espace à
Byzance et en Occident, études comparées, ed. M. Kaplan, (Paris: Byzantina Sorbonensia
18, 2001), 263–318; D. Ø. Endsjø, Primordial Landscapes, Incorruptible Bodies. Desert
Asceticism and the Christian Appropriation of Greek Ideas on Geography, Bodies and Im-
mortality (New York: Peter Lang, 2008); D. Popović, “The Deserts and Holy Mountains
of Medieval Serbia: written sources, spatial patterns, architectural designs”. In Heilige
Berge und Wüsten, Byzanz und seine Umfeld, ed. P. Soustal, (Vienna: Verlag der Österrei-
chischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 53–69; D. Popović, “Desert as Heavenly
Jerusalem: the Imagery of a Sacred Space in the Making”. In New Jerusalems. Hierotopy
and Iconography of Sacred Spaces, ed. A. Lidov, (Moscow: Indrik, 2009), 151–175; della
Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred.
102 Balcanica LV (2024)

a prince and a monk, the first head of the autocephalous Serbian Church and
chief creator of the dynastic ideology of the first Nemanjić rulers.
And yet, the initiatives that can be attributed reliably to St Sava are pre-
ceded by the sacral monuments dating from the reign of his father, grand župan
Stefan Nemanja (named Simeon in monkhood), which compellingly testify to
the well-considered and purposeful attitude to space as an important factor in
the dynastic policy of religious patronage. A remarkable example is the sacral
complex at the heart of Stari (Old) Ras in the Raška and Deževa river valleys
consisting of the ancient cathedral church of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
and, above it, on the top of the conical hill that dominates the landscape, the
monastery of Djurdjevi Stupovi – the votive and triumphal monument of the
founder of the dynasty.6 Not far from it, an eremitic cave community came to be
nestled, probably also in the reign of Stefan Nemanja, in the cliffs beneath the
fortress of Ras, organically blending into the craggy landscape.7 Its particular
relevance to us lies in the fact that it shows, along with some other examples,
that not only the anchoritic form of monasticism but also the physical structures
specific to it and always inseparable from their natural setting had a long tradi-
tion in the Balkans.8
The selection of site for setting up a monastic community was very im-
portant in the middle ages and depended on many factors. As observed in schol-
arship long ago, material and spiritual realties, geography and symbolism, the
imaginary and the economic, the social and the ideological were interwoven in
that process.9 Examination of the textual material, among which monastic typ-
ika and hagiographies are especially relevant, has shown that appropriate natu-
ral conditions were a very important consideration – seclusion from the world,
healthy climate, fertile land, clean water, even the beauty of the landscape. On
the other hand, the anchorites intent on pursuing radical asceticism purposely
chose isolated and inhospitable environments that would put their dedication

6 D. Vojvodić and M. Marković, Đurđevi Stupovi u Rasu (Belgrade: Platoneum, 2023);

M. Marković and D. Vojvodić, Crkva Svetih apostola Petra i Pavla u Rasu (Novi Sad:
Platoneum, 2021).
7 D. Popović and M. Popović, “The Cave Lavra of the Archangel Michael in Ras”, Stari-
nar XLIX/1998 (1999), 103–130; M. Popović, Tvrđava Ras (Belgrade: Arheološki insti-
tut, 1999), 278–288.
8 An especially important example is the hermitage of St Peter of Koriša near Prizren,
see D. Popović, “The Cult of St Peter of Koriša – Stages of Development, Patterns“, Bal-
canica XXVIII (1997), 177; D. Popović, B. Todić and D. Vojvodić, Dečanska pustinja. Ski-
tovi i kelije manastira Dečana (Belgrade: Balkanološki institut SANU; Međuodeljenski
odbor SANU za proučavanje Kosova i Metohije, 2011), 177; I. Špadijer, Sveti Petar
Koriški u staroj srpskoj književnosti (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2014), 133–153.
9 J. Le Goff, “Le désert-forêt dans l’Occident médiéval”, L’imaginaire médiéval (Paris:
Gallimard, 1985), 59–75.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 103

and the strength of their faith to a test.10 In any case, looking for and finding the
“right” site required “conquering” a space. By the founding of a monastery or an
eremitic community – which was frequently guided by divine signs or took place
after a triumph over demonic forces – the wild nature was transformed and
sacralised and, depending on the type and needs of the monastic community,
cultivated.11 In keeping with the belief in an essential synergy between God,
man and nature, the monks would have had an active relationship to the natural
environment, ever striving to infuse it with the spiritual and shape it over and
over again. They thus transformed the wilderness into a sacred place, construct-
ing their community’s distinctive religious and cultural identity along the way.12
Sava of Serbia purposely uses the topos of reshaping waste land and wil-
derness into a sacred place in the Life of St Simeon when referring to the con-
struction of Studenica, his father’s foundation and the dynastic funerary church.
At the very beginning of the Life, he states: “This holy monastery of ours was,
as you know, a place like a waste hunting ground of beasts. When he, our lord
and autokrator Stefan Nemanja, who reigned over the Serbian land, came here
to hunt and when he was hunting here, it pleased him to build here, at this waste
place, this monastery for the peace and propagation of the monkhood.”13 Sava
noticeably lays a particular emphasis on the statement, by repeating it twice, that
the monastery of Studenica was built at a waste place “found” in the course of
hunting. He skilfully uses the “waste hunting ground” topos as a descriptor of the
found wild expanse predestined for the monastic endeavour. Likewise, Basil the
Great, for example, states in his correspondence that the “paradisiacal” place in
the mountains of the Pontus he chose for his anchoritic dwelling had previously

10 A-M. Talbot, “Founders’ choices: monastery site selection”. In Founders and Refounders
of Byzantine Monasteries, ed. M. Mullet (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, Institute
of Byzantine Studies, 2007), 43–52; A-M. Talbot, “Byzantine Monastic Horticulture:
the Textual Evidence”. In Byzantine Garden Culture, eds. A. Littlewood, H. Maguire and
J. Wolschke-Bulmahn, (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 37–41; D. Popović
in Popović, Todić and Vojvodić, Dečanska pustinja, 203–207.
11 M. Kaplan, “Le choix du lieu saint d’après certaines sources hagiographiques byzan-
tines”. In Le sacré et son inscription dans l’espace à Byzance et en Occident. Etudes comparées,
ed. M. Kaplan, (Paris: Byzantina Sorbonensia 18, 2001), 183–198; for examples from
the Serbian milieu see S. Marjanović-Dušanić, “Zamišljeni i stvarni prostori srpskog
srednjeg veka: skica za istraživanje rituala”. In Svet srednjovekovnih utvrđenja, gradova i
manastira. Omaž Marku Popoviću, eds. V. Ivanišević, V. Bikić and I. Bugarski, (Belgrade:
Arheološki institut, Grad Beograd – Omladinsko pozorište Dadov, 2021), 179–197.
12 E. F. Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape. Environment and Monastic Identity in the Me-
dieval Ardennes (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 22–27, 173–
211; della Dora in Christian Pilgrimage, Landscape and Heritage, 45–51.
13 Sveti Sava, Sabrani spisi, ed. D. Bogdanović, (Belgrade: Prosveta and Srpska književna
zadruga, 1986), 97.
104 Balcanica LV (2024)

been only visited by hunters.14 The meaning is similar of the claim in the typikon
of the Constantinopolitan monastery of Kosmosoteria that it was built on a site
that was “wild in every respect”, inhabited only by snakes and scorpions.15 The
expulsion of wild beasts from the newly-conquered territory had a great sym-
bolic value because it implied the control the monks had established over nature.
At play here are deep associative connections underlying the medieval percep-
tion of nature and of its layered meaning. These associations were a vital driving
force and spiritual reference point in “discovering” and establishing important
sacred places, such as Studenica undoubtedly was. Sava does not describe the
monastery’s natural setting in any detail, but the exceptional qualities of the sur-
rounding landscape are still recognizable.
The account of Stefan the First-Crowned in his Life of St Simeon con-
veys much the same meaning. Namely, he says that Sava found “a waste place in
the middle of Mount Athos” and urged his father, Simeon (Nemanja), to “make
every haste” to build there – on the site of the abandoned monastery of the Pre-
sentation of the Virgin – Hilandar.16 So, both of the abovementioned monastic
communities, royal foundations of the first order, came into existence through
the transformation of waste land. Both bore a strong mark of identity, as com-
pellingly evidenced by written sources: Studenica was the funerary church and
dynastic foothold of the House of Nemanjić, a metaphor for the Heavenly Je-
rusalem and the tabernacle of the Serbian people, and, as such, the sacred point
of the highest order on native soil, in the Serbian land.17 Hilandar, on the other
hand, was the Serbian foothold on the sanctified soil of Mount Athos, which
earned it the epithet of the New Sion of the Serbian fatherland.18 Not at all by
accident, both monasteries operated as hubs and founts of not only liturgical and
cultural life but also of the dynastic ideology of the House of Nemanjić. There
is no doubt that their construction required enormous effort to overpower and

14 After H. Maguire, “Paradise Withdrawn”. In Byzantine Garden Culture, 33; see also
della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 171.
15 Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents. A Complete Translation of the Surviving
Founders’ Typika and Testaments, eds. J. Thomas and A. Constantinides Hero, vol. 2
(Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2000), 798.
16 Stefan Prvovenčani, Sabrani spisi, ed. Ljiljana Juhas-Georgijevska, (Belgrade: Prosve-
ta and Srpska književna zadruga, 1988), 79, 80; M. Živojinović, Istorija Hilandara, vol. I:
Od osnivanja manastira 1198. do 1335. godine (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1998), 57–65.
17 D. Popović, Pod okriljem svetosti. Kult srpskih vladara i relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Sr-
biji (Belgrade: Balkanološki institut SANU, 2006), 71–73 (“O nastanku kulta svetog
Simeona”).
18 Lj. Maksimović, “Hilandar i srpska vladarska ideologija”. In Osam vekova Hilandara,
ed. V. Korać, (Belgrade: SANU, 2000), 9–16; S. Marjanović-Dušanić, “Hilandar kao
Novi Sion Nemanjinog otačastva”. In Osam vekova Hilandara, 17–24.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 105

domesticate the wilderness of the sites. This kind of endeavour, physical and
spiritual, is vividly and exhaustively described in the typikon of the oldest and
most distinguished Athonite cenobium, the Lavra monastery.19 Enormous ef-
fort was also put in rebuilding the monastery of Hilandar, as may be seen clearly
from the somewhat later texts penned by Domentijan and Teodosije.20 The aim
of such an endeavour, seen many times in the history of medieval monasticism,
was to create, in the chosen environment, on the site of the conquered wilder-
ness, the dedicated ones’ own microcosm and abode – in a word, a monastic
paradise in miniature as a “reconstruction” of the archetypal one epitomized by
the Garden of Eden.21
That Sava had a crucial role in instituting and organizing monastic life
in medieval Serbia is a generally accepted and well-argued view. He drew on
the Athonite model, which encompassed diverse forms of monasticism, from
the basic, cenobitic, one through transitional to the kelliotic or eremitic way of
life.22 His relationship to the natural environment found full expression at his
founding of the Karyes kellion, for which he wrote a separate typikon.23 As an
Athonite learner in his youth and, much later, on his pilgrimages to the most
renowned monastic communities of the East in his capacity as head of the Ser-
bian Church, Sava had the opportunity to gain a keen understanding both of
the meaning and purpose of monastic deserts, and of their natural settings.24 No
wonder, then, that the Serbian hesychasteria he founded reveal his great erudi-
tion and finely-honed appreciation of the features and symbolic meanings of
different landscapes.

19 Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, vol. 1, 251–253.

20 Domentijan, Život Svetoga Save i Život Svetoga Simeuna, ed. R. Marinković, (Bel-
grade: Prosveta and Srpska književna zadruga, 1988), 91–93; Teodosije, Žitija, ed. D.
Bogdanović, (Belgrade: Prosveta and Srpska književna zadruga, 1988), 138–139 (which
claims, among other things, that Sava mustered “a multitude of workers because he
wanted to accomplish much in little time”).
21 Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape, 22–27, 173–211; della Dora, Landscape, Nature
and the Sacred, 170–172.
22 D. Papahrisantu, Atonsko monaštvo, počeci i organizacija (Belgrade: Društvo prijatelja
Svete Gore Atonske, 2003), 49–91 and passim; D. Popović in Dečanska pustinja, eds.
Popović, Todić and Vojvodić, 178–185 (with bibliography).
23 Sveti Sava, Sabrani spisi, 41–86; L. Mirković, “Skitski ustavi sv. Save”, Brastvo 28
(1934), 52–68; I. Špadijer, Svetogorska baština (Belgrade: Čigoja štampa, 2014), 18–21
(with complete bibliography); M. Živojinović, Svetogorske kelije i pirgovi u srednjem veku
(Belgrade: Vizantološki institut SANU, 1972), 91–102.
24 D. Popović, “Pustinožiteljstvo svetog Save Srpskog”. In Kult svetih na Balkanu II, ed.
M. Detelić, (Kragujevac: Liceum 7, 2002), 61–85; see also M. Marković, Prvo putovan-
je svetog Save u Palestinu i njegov značaj za srpsku srednjovekovnu umetnost (Belgrade:
Vizantološki institut SANU, 2009).
106 Balcanica LV (2024)

As far as landscapes are concerned, it should be noted that Sava fol-

lowed both models of the monastic desert when founding hesychasteria – the
locus amoenus and the locus terribilis.25 What the two had in common was with-
drawal from the world into untouched nature which appeared to be meant for
ascetic pursuits. The former model – the monastic paradise and Edenic garden
– was embodied in the Karyes kellion, a hermitage of the monastery of Hilandar,
whose first dweller was Sava himself.26 As for the natural setting of the Karyes
kellion, its conception is illustrated well by Sava’s biographers. According to Do-
mentijan, Sava discovered “a place extraordinarily bright and admirable, adorned
with all manner of beauties in the likeness of paradise, in the middle of Karyes,
where the holy monks live in the sketic way in every silence.”27 Teodosije’s ac-
count is not much different. Sava, he says, “found an extraordinary place in the
place called Karyes, adorned with good waters and fruit-bearing trees”; having
purchased that piece of land from the protos, he had a kellion built and a small
church dedicated to his patron saint, St Sabas the Sanctified, and dwelt there
alone “in silence, psalm-chanting and prayer”.28
These descriptions clearly show that the conception of the Karyes kellion
echoed the models of natural environment established in Byzantine literature
and art as early as the post-iconoclastic period: the idea of hesychasterion as an
earthly paradise – a place secluded from the world, nested in a bucolic natural
setting, flowery and fragrant, abounding in clean water, singing birds; briefly, a
markedly beautiful landscape. It is at the same time a spiritual paradise, the place
of the monastic endeavour reserved for the few dedicated monks.29 The latter
approach can be read from one of the main provisions of the typikon of Karyes,
the one in which Sava prescribes that the kellion be the “dwelling for two or three
[monks]”, and those who are “worthy of the spiritual rule”.30
The conception of the Karyes kellion included a garden or a vineyard.
Namely, the reference to wine and fruit in its typikon31 has led researchers to

25 I discussed this topic in more detail in a separate paper: D. Popović, “Monastic wil-
derness as a cultural construct. Case study: the cave hermitages of the monastery of
Mileševa”. In Wilderness Revisited: its Essence, Perception, Description and Image in Byzan-
tium and Beyond, Studies in Historical Geography and Cultural Heritage (in press).
26 Živojinović, Svetogorske kelije i pirgovi, 91–102; M. Kovačević, Sveta Carska Lavra
Hilandar na Svetoj Gori. Arhitekrura i druga dobra (Belgrade – Hilandar: Zadužbina
Svetog manastira Hilandara, 2015) 556–566 (with earlier literature).
27 Domentijan, Život Svetoga Save i Život Svetoga Simeuna, 96.
28 Teodosije, Žitija, 146.
29 Maguire, “Paradise Withdrawn”, 23–35; H. Maguire, Nectar and Illusion. Nature in
Byzantine Art and Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
30 Sveti Sava, Sabrani spisi, 37–38.
31 Ibid., 37.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 107

assume that a vineyard and a fruit orchard were planted around it. This is cor-
roborated by written sources which show that Sava successively purchased land
in the environs of the kellion with a view to planting a vineyard. It is worthy of
note that some of that land had been left unploughed and was overgrown with
trees, which would have required its cultivation or, in other words, the trans-
formation of the found wild nature.32 Sava was an heir to an ancient tradition
in that respect too. St Anthony the Great, the illustrious founder of anchoritic,
kelliotic monasticism, is known to have planted a vegetable garden next to his
hermitage in the “inner desert”.33 Such gardens were also tended by anchorites in
the Judean Desert – St Sabas the Sanctified among them – as claimed by textual
sources and confirmed by archaeology.34 As documented credibly in scholarship,
small gardens around anchoritic kellia were common in the Byzantine world
too.35
The described conception of the Karyes kellion had a broader context of
meaning as well. It is readable from the perception of Mount Athos as a monastic
paradise held by Sava of Serbia and his brother Stefan, the future first crowned
Serbian king. Sava presented it in his Life of St Simeon penned about 1207, and
Stefan in the proem of his Hilandar Charter, traditionally dated to 1199–1202
and relatively recently re-dated to 1207–1208.36 Since the two descriptions of
Mount Athos as a paradisiacal meadow have been quoted and discussed more
than once – and recently received an exhaustive and informative study by Irena
Špadijer37 – I shall only focus on the points of interest to our topic.
In Sava’s Life of St Simeon Mount Athos is described as the “holy meadow”
at which Simeon (Nemanja) came at his son’s invitation: “And [Simeon] arrived

32 Natpisi manastira Hilandara, vol. I: XIV—XVII vek, eds. G. Subotić, B. Miljković

and N. Dudić, (Belgrade: Hilandarski odbor SANU and Vizantološki odbor SANU,
2019), 121–122 (B. Miljković, who offers detailed commentaries on the statements
made in the written sources).
33 Athanase d’Alexandrie, Vie d’Antoine, ed. G. J. M. Bartelink, (Paris: Les Éditions du
Cerf, 1994), 271–273.
34 Cyril of Scythopolis, The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, eds. R. M. Price and J. Binns,
(Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1991), 20, 96, 118, 126; Y. Hirschfeld, The Judean
Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992),
200–204.
35 Talbot, “Byzantine Monastic Horticulture“, 41–48 (with sources).
36 Đ. Bubalo, “Kada je veliki župan Stefan Nemanjić izdao povelju manastiru Hilan-
daru?”, Stari srpski arhiv 9 (2010), 233–241.
37 I. Špadijer, “Alegorija raja kod svetog Save i Stefana Prvovenčanog”. In PERIVOLOS,
Zbornik u čast Mirjane Živojinović, eds. B. Miljković and D. Dželebdžić, (Belgrade:
Vizantološki institut SANU and Zadužbina Svetog manastira Hilandara 2015), 113–
126 (with special reference to the artistic and textual models used by Sava of Serbia and
Stefan the First-Crowned, and to the chronological relationship of their compositions).
108 Balcanica LV (2024)

at the meadow of peace, amongst beautifully tall and fruit-bearing trees in which
sweet birds are singing, where he, listening, lived a peaceful and tranquil life, and
anchored well in the true faith and shining bright, stood like a beautiful tree in a
good harbour, to wit at Mount Athos…”38 The allegory of the paradisiacal “holy
meadow” becomes more detailed in Stefan’s donation charter for Hilandar – in
the poetic image regarded, and with good reason, as one of the most beautiful in
medieval literature, and not only Serbian.39 Stefan describes his father’s vision
of paradise as follows: “He [Simeon] was elevated by thought and desired: as if
he were standing at an elevated place, in springtime, on a merry day, i.e. sunny,
and he saw from afar a smooth meadow, beautiful in appearance, lovely in cre-
ation. In the middle of it a beautiful tree stood, with a round crown full of leaves,
graced with flowers and heavy with fruit, sending forth a sweet scent. And in the
middle of the tree a sweet-voiced bird settled, modest when sitting, soft-toned
when singing, joyous when chirping, clear when whispering, one of the wise lov-
ing birds, his sweet boy […] called Sava the monk.40
The allegory of Mount Athos as a paradisiacal meadow that Sava and
Stefan used drawing on the selected Byzantine literary models reveals its full, so-
teriological significance. It is clear from Stefan’s words that Simeon abandoned
the world to earn “the meadow described afore” and “attain salvation there”. Tell-
ing and full of meaning is also his likening of the Athonite monks, pillars of the
true faith, to the branches of the paradisiacal tree: “and [Simeon] heard that the
life in that meadow is peaceful and tranquil, and that orthodoxy has taken good
roots and is shining bright, like a tree that stands beautifully, and its branches are
the sanctified and God-fearing and Christ-loving monks…”41 The same message
is conveyed by Sava’s description of the Athonite monks as “nice-smelling flow-
ers blooming in that holy desert”.42 This is not merely a beautiful poetic image;
it is also the theologically meaningful idea of flowers as a metaphor for piety, vir-
tue and ascetic values. Hence the link between fragrance, floral symbolism and
monastic pursuits is an important topos in Christian literature.43 It underlies the
interpretation of the monastic desert as the anchoritic paradise where a multi-
tude of flowers bloom – the monks and their virtues. This only seeming paradox

38 Sveti Sava, Sabrani spisi, 108–109.

39 S. Radojčić, “Hilandarska povelja Stefana Prvovenčanog i motiv raja u srpskom mon-
umentalnom slikarstvu”, Uzori i dela starih srpskih umetnika (Belgrade: Srpska književna
zadruga, 1975), 195–210; Špadijer, “Alegorija raja”, 114, 125.
40 Stefan Prvovenčani, Sabrani spisi, 56.
41 Ibid., 57.
42 Sveti Sava, Sabrani spisi, 111.
43 D. Popović, “Cvetna simbolika i kult relikvija u srednjovekovnoj Srbiji”, Zograf
32/2008 (2009), 69–81 (with sources and literature).
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 109

is expressed by the syntagm desertum floridus.44 It reveals an essential goal of the

hermits – to “reconstruct” the Garden of Eden in their own living environment
and thus anticipate the future abodes of the Heavenly Jerusalem.45
Scholars have already put forward the view that Sava’s and Stefan’s pen-
chant for the motif of paradisiacal meadow, embodied in the monastic setting
of Mount Athos, may be accounted for by the brothers’ similar artistic taste or
common literary source of inspiration. It has also been observed that the topos of
paradisiacal meadow used by Sava was based on his own experience,46 a fact that
is certainly worthy of being emphasized. It was in the early, formative period of
his life that Sava experienced the monastic desert and its landscape – “beautiful
in appearance, lovely in creation” – as an idyllic backdrop for a “tranquil life”. If
we are to believe his biographers, the impression that the Athonite practice of
eremitism made on him was so strong that it set off a profound inner transfor-
mation. No wonder, then, that he retained all his life an especial, emotionally
charged relationship to Mount Athos in general, and to the Karyes kellion in
particular. Under the pressure of duties and worries, he often remembered the
days spent in that “divine paradise”, yearning to return to his locus amoenus.47
Sava’s immediate and deeply felt experience of the desert – and not only at
Athos but also at the dwellings of illustrious ascetics of Egypt, Judea and Sinai –
included awareness of its other side known as the locus terribilis or locus horridus.
The latter conception, the opposite of the paradisiacal bucolic one embodied in
the Karyes kellion, was given physical form in the hermitage of the monastery of
Studenica he founded in his homeland – of which more will be said later. At any
rate, Sava’s choices of locations for anchoritic dwellings testify to his familiarity
with the tradition of kelliotic cave monasticism, including the aspect concerning
the symbolic properties of its natural setting.
As far as the landscape is concerned, undoubtedly the central phenome-
non and distinctive feature of medieval ascetic monasticism was holy mountains
– iconic, theophanic spaces of the first order. They evoked biblical mountains –
such as Sinai, Tabor, the Mount of Olives, Golgotha – the sites of the key events
of Sacred History as well as the mountains regarded as loci memoriae associated

44 G. J. M. Beterling, “Les Oxymores desertum civitas et desertum floribus”, Studia mo-

nastica 15 (1977), 7–15; S. Ashbrook Harvey, Scenting salvation. Ancient Christianity and
the Olfactory Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 56–200.
45 R. L. Wilken, “Loving Jerusalem Below: the Monks of Palestine”. In Jerusalem, its
Sanctity and Centrality to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, ed. L. I. Levine, (New York:
Continuum, 1999), 240–250; D. Popović, “Desert as Heavenly Jerusalem: the imagery
of a sacred space in the making”. In New Jerusalems. Hierotopy and Iconography of Sacred
Spaces, ed. A. Lidov, (Moscow: Indrik, 2009), 151–175.
46 Špadijer, “Alegorija raja”, 125.
47 D. Popović, “Pustinožiteljstvo svetog Save”, 70–71 (with sources).
110 Balcanica LV (2024)

with the life and deeds of distinguished ascetics. In the Byzantine mind, they
were metaphors for spiritual ascent and the ladder leading to heaven.48 As many
concepts of Eastern Christian asceticism, holy mountains were an ambivalent
category when it comes to landscape. They could be a space transformed into a
paradisiacal garden through the transformation of wilderness. Documented well
in Byzantine writers, this idea – which found a supreme expression in Psellos’
description of the Bithynian holy mountain as “a second paradise and a second
heaven”49 – is clearly recognizable, we have seen, in the perception of the Holy
Mountain of Athos held by Sava of Serbia and Stefan the First-Crowned.
And yet, holy mountains and monastic deserts – although frequently under-
stood as complementary, even interchangeable concepts – as a rule belonged to
the locus horridus category: a dramatically beautiful but remote, barely accessible
and dangerous environment which made the ascetic face the hardest trials. The
anchorites leaning towards radical asceticism purposefully settled in such in-
hospitable and perilous environments. There is textual evidence for many such
examples among the old desert fathers. Elias the Hermit, a dweller of the illus-
trious Egyptian Thebaid, was famed for having spent seventy years in the “hor-
rible desert”, without ever descending to the inhabited area. His cave hermitage,
high in the rocks, could be reached by a narrow, barely noticeable path along the
cliff.50 The tradition of the desert fathers had its continuators. For example, the
hermitage of the distinguished Lazaros of Galesion in an inaccessible mountain-
ous landscape was so difficult to reach that the visitors had to resort to a special
technology to cut a path in the rock; a man was reportedly killed while trying
to climb to his kellion using a rope.51 Telling in that sense is the Athonite monk
John’s description of his habitat as “cruel and cheerless” and, therefore, suited
to the purpose.52 In the Serbian milieu, an especially prominent example is the
hermit Peter whose vita was penned by Teodosije (Theodosius) of Hilandar.
Peter found his kellion sometime in the late twelfth century in the inaccessible
mountainous area of Koriša which he, characteristically, calls a “holy mountain”.
A century later, Teodosije used select topoi of ascetic literature to describe the
hermit’s endeavour: “He climbed a tall rock gripping it with his fingers. And

48 Talbot, “Les saintes montagnes à Byzance”, 263–318; della Dora, Landscape, Nature
and the Sacred, 147–175; A. Lidov, ed., The Hierotopy of Holy Mountains in Christian
Culture (Moscow: Indrik, 2019); for examples from the Serbian milieu see D. Popović,
“The Deserts and Holy Mountains of Medieval Serbia”, 53–69.
49 After Talbot, “Les saintes montagnes à Byzance”, 275.
50 Historia Monachorum in Aegypto (The Lives of the Desert Fathers), ed. N. Russel,
(London: Mowbray, 1981), 69.
51 The Life of Lazaros of Mt. Galesion. An Eleventh-Century Pillar Saint, ed. R. P. H.
Greenfield, (Washington, D. C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2000), 89, 91.
52 Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents, vol. 4, 1391.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 111

having laboriously climbed it, like a pillar, he found high up on this rock a cave,
as if prepared by God, and, having thanked God greatly, rejoiced at it.”53
The “cave prepared by God” and the pillar-like rock reminiscent of the
dwellings of ancient stylites, whom Peter’s Life expectedly mentions, point to a
fundamental aspect of the eremitic habitats: their rocky and speluncar charac-
ter. In Christian tradition, natural features such as caves, cliffs and rocks were
believed to be God’s miraculous “creations” or “not made by human hands”. They
evoked the creation of the world and were considered to be privileged places
for mystical encounters with the divine. They were also the site of the hermit’s
struggle with demonic forces.54 That idea underlay so-called rock-cut architecture,
the practice of building eremitic cells, parekklesia and churches, sometimes even
entire complexes, in and against caves and cliff faces. This type of architecture,
occurring in the parts of the Eastern Christian world where the topography per-
mitted, exemplified the harmony established between natural, “divine” creations
and architecture, a work of human hands.55
Caves held a special place among those stony “not-made-by-hands” fea-
tures. They have always been seen as a liminal zone, an “anti-space” as it were, a
place of darkness, silence and apophatic mysticism. The cave is almost like the
ascetic’s grave in which he, in the spirit of the Ladder, dwells in the “daily re-
membrance of death, mortifying the body and ascending in virtue.”56 That place
signified in the most literal sense the hermit’s abandonment of the world and
programmatic narrowing of perception aimed at ridding himself of all superflu-
ous contents.57 By way of illustration, let me offer a telling example. Elpidius, a
radical ascetic, dwelled in the desert in the environs of Jericho. A tall mountain
rose in front of his cave, barring his view: for the twenty-five years he spent
there he could see neither the sun after six in the morning nor the stars in the

53 Teodosije, Žitija, 271; D. Popović, “The Cult of St Peter of Koriša”, 210–235, 186–188.
54 della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 147–196.
55 D. Popović in Popović, Todić, and Vojvodić, Dečanska pustinja, 205–207 (with exam-
ples from the Eastern Christian world and relevant literature).
56 Sveti Jovan Lestvičnik, Lestvica, ed. D. Bogdanović, (Belgrade: Sveti arhijerejski sinod
SPC, 1965), 68–71.
57 J. Danièlou, “Le Symbole de la caverne chez Grégoire de Nysse”. In Mullus: Festschrift
Theodor Klauser, Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 1, eds. A. von Stuiber and A. Her-
mann, (Münster: Aschendorf, 1964), 43–51; S. Ćurčić, “Cave and Church. An Eastern
Christian Hierotopical Synthesis”. In Hierotopy, The Creation of Sacral Spaces in Byzan-
tium and Medieval Russia, ed. A. Lidov, (Moscow: Indrik, 2006), 216–236; A-M. Talbot,
“Caves, demons and holy man”. In Le saint, le moine et le paysan. Mélanges d’histoire byzan-
tine offerts à Michel Kaplan, eds. O. Delouis, S. Métivier and P. Pages, (Paris: Byzantina
Sorbonensia, 2016), 707–718.
112 Balcanica LV (2024)

night sky.58 Apart from offering an abundance of colourful information about

the eremitic way of life, vivid stories about the cave dwellers, such as the one
about Elpidius, reveal its higher, ethical and spiritual purpose.59 Finally, the kel-
liote’s dwelling in a cave involved the struggle with demons, embodiments of
sins and destructive passions. In the subsequent centuries, the arduous battle to
overpower those forces of evil, as a rule accompanied by miraculous signs, and
the transformation of the cave into a sacred place became a major topos of ascetic
and hagiographic literature.60
In any case, caves were an important element of the already mentioned
topographic system which made it possible for the original meaning of hallowed
models – the Old and New Testament caves, as well as those that kept the mem-
ory of the famous desert fathers – to be recreated, across the Christian world, in
one’s own time and place. How great their symbolic power was may be seen from
the fact that Eastern Christian exegesis developed a distinctive discourse known
as “speluncar theology”.61
Bearing in mind all these general principles regarding the monastic land-
scape as the ascetic locus horridus, let us return to Sava of Serbia. During his
stay at Mount Athos, Sava had the opportunity to acquaint himself with both
types of monastic landscape – besides the “Edenic” one, he gained an insight
into the “cruellest life” of the ascetics residing on the almost inaccessible slopes of
Athos. It is worthy of note that in the Byzantine mind this mountain had special
charisma and its summit, likened to Tabor, the mount of Transfiguration, was
regarded as the place of divine revelation.62 The features of this landscape, which
has changed little since Sava’s times, and Teodosije of Hilandar’s well-known
description help us form a convincing picture of what young Sava experienced
during his visits to the most radical Athonite hermits. According to Teodosije,
they dwelled “in high mountains together with deer”, had the “sky for a church”
and “cramped huts adorned with grass.” They resided “in rock clefts and land
caves and on sea rocks like birds”. The recluses lived in union with nature and

58 Palladius, The Lausiac History, ed. R. T. Meyer, (London: Longmans, Green and Co.,
1965), 131.
59 Of numerous examples, I offer here a selection of classical compositions: Historia
Monachorum in Aegypto, 56, 61, 69, 70, 91, 92, 99 and passim; Palladius, The Lausiac
History, 32, 57, 82, 92, 130, 138; Cyril of Scythopolis, The Lives of the Monks of Palestine,
11, 12, 58, 103, 108, 110, 117 and passim.
60 R. P. H. Greenfield, Traditions of Belief in Late Byzantine Demonology (Amsterdam:
Hakkert, 1988); T. Pratsch, Der hagiographische Topos. Griechische Heiligenviten in mit-
telbyzantinische Zeit (Berlin: Millenium-Studien, 2005), 160–169; Endsjø, Primordial
Landscapes, 49–58; Talbot, “Caves, demons and holy man”, 707–718.
61 della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 176–196.
62 Ibid., 166–170.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 113

were exposed to all of its blessings and whims: “Taught by the hum of trees and
the chirp of birds […] nourished by clean and fragrant air”, but also “lashed by
rain and winds, scorched by sun and heat, chilled by frost and cold”. They lived
on “the fruits of trees and the herbs of the undergrowth”, and drank “the sweet
thirst-quenching water running from the mountain stone.”63 Teodosije does not
fail to mention Sava’s fascination with this “tranquil anchoritic life” and profound
understanding of the purpose of anchoritism in the Orthodox monastic system.
Guided by those insights and his own vision, Sava brought the model
established at Mount Athos – which included the Karyes kellion attached to
Hilandar as the mother monastery – to the Serbian lands. He gave it physi-
cal form in the vicinity of the monastery of Studenica, the sacral and dynastic
centre of the first Nemanjić rulers, by having a hesychasterion built, which is
still extant and known as Sava’s Upper Hermitage.64 Unlike the Karyes kellion
whose founding and typikon are documented in written sources, all evidence
for the founding of the Studenica one is lost – probably in many ravages the
monastery and its kellion suffered over the centuries. Nonetheless, there is good
reason for researchers’ undivided opinion that the Studenica hermitage was
Sava’s brainchild. It is corroborated by the general, conceptual reasons, illustrat-
ed well by the words of Sava’s biographer Domentijan that Sava “brought the
Holy Mountain’s good example to his fatherland, to cenobiums, monasteries,
hesychasteria”.65 Sava’s role in the founding of the hermitage is suggested not
only by the enduring local tradition but also by somewhat later written sources.
Especially important of these is a note made in a manuscript copy of the Typikon
of Studenica: “This typikon, written by the hand of St Sava, was copied in 1619
in the cave hermitage of St Sava.”66
While the Karyes kellion, as we have seen, epitomized a bucolic land-
scape and heavenly meadows, the Studenica hermitage exemplified the model
based on the “sacred triad” – mountain, rock, cave. The “Upper Hermitage” sits
about 12 km to the west of the monastery of Studenica, deep in Mt Čemerno. It
can be reached from two directions – from the west, from the village of Bažale,
and along the path from the “Lower Hermitage”, from the village of Savovo,

63 Teodosije, Žitija, 116–117.

64 L. Pavlović, “Beleške o manastiru Studenici”, Saopštenja XIX (1987), 169–171; S.
Temerinski, “Gornja isposnica u Savovu kod Studenice”. In Osam vekova Studenice (Bel-
grade: Sveti arhijerejski sinod SPC 1986), 257–260; S. Temerinski, “Konzervatorski
problemi u Gornjoj isposnici kod Studenice”, Glasnik Društva konzervatora 14 (1990),
44–52; N. Debljović-Ristić, “Gornja isposnica Svetog Save u Studenici – obnova drve-
nog pristupnog mosta ka kuli za stanovanje”, Moderna konzervacija 6 (2018), 95–104.
65 Domentijan, Život Svetoga Save i Život Svetoga Simeona, 124.
66 Lj. Stojanović, Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi, I–VI (Belgrade: SANU, Narodna bibli-
oteka Srbije, Matica srpska, 1982–1988), 293–294.
114 Balcanica LV (2024)

which means a steep ascent in the last section. Rock-cut paths leading to the
cave complex testify to the difficulty of access. At the end of the ascent, from
a narrow piece of level land several hundred meters above the Studenica river,
a magnificent view breaks upon the visitor – of the whole river gorge and, far
in the distance, the slopes of Mt Golija. The Upper Hermitage, a small cave
complex, is set up in a spacious funnel-shaped recess in the vertical rock mass.
Either approach to it was defended by a wall and gate. The complex consists of
several structures whose original medieval layer has been identified under the
subsequent additions and more recent reconstructions.67
Visually the most imposing is the multi-storeyed residential building
known as the “Tower”, with its floors organized into several functional wholes.
Under it is a two-part chamber, dubbed “Sava’s cask” (Savina kaca), with a walled
water well at one end and a fireplace at the other. The Tower can be accessed by
a 20-m-long wooden bridge supported by stone-built pillars. At the other end
of the bridge, a natural recess in the rock accommodates a small aisleless church
dedicated to St George which shows the same building material and technique
as the Tower. The complex includes other elements – such as the cave with
the walled-up entrance and a spring inside it above the former gate as well as a
lengthy, spacious cave in the immediate vicinity of the Tower.68
Viewed as a whole and individually, all the elements described above
compellingly show that the architecture of the Upper Hermitage was organi-
cally integrated into the landscape. Conservation-restoration and field work
revealed a number of important facts and technical details about how the me-
dieval builders adapted the form of buildings to the configuration of the rocks.
They cut paths and hewed cave walls, built retaining walls and stone supports,
cut holes for wooden beams and grooves of various shapes and purposes. They
spanned the chasm by a wooden bridge, and fitted two springs and the fireplace,
vital to the survival of the hermits, in the space of the caves. It would not be an
overstatement to say that the Upper Hermitage of Studenica is a representative
example of “rock architecture” with respect both to architectural form and to the
construction method and technique.
The first thing that strikes even the untrained visitor to the Upper Her-
mitage is its location; in other words, the choice of site that took into account
a number of natural-morphological, spatial and microclimatic characteristics.69
These characteristics, and the perfect harmony between the architecture and
the rocky landscape testify to a masterful knowledge of the main elements of

67 Temerinski, “Gornja isposnica”, 259–260; Temerinski, “Konzervatorski problemi u

Gornjoj isposnici”, 44–52; Debljović-Ristić, “Gornja isposnica Svetog Save”, 99–101.
68 See n. 64.
69 Debljović-Ristić, “Gornja isposnica Svetog Save”, 97–99.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 115

monastic cave habitats, including those relating to their associative and symbolic
meaning, and certainly known perfectly well to Sava of Serbia. It should also
be noted that the Studenica hermitage faces the southeast, which means it had
excellent sun exposure; hence an unexpectedly diverse plant life on the narrow
piece of land around it – including grapevines and cherry and apricot trees.70
Yet, these “bucolic” details are by no means the distinctive feature of this craggy
landscape. The prevailing impression it makes is the dramatic scenery that elic-
its admiration and delight as much as fear and anxiety in face of the whims of
wild nature. Illustrative in that sense is the experience of the visitors caught by
a storm and, especially, of the Studenica monks who make an occasional stay
at Sava’s hermitage. According to them, spending a night there can be quite a
trial because of the seclusion of the place, complete darkness and strange, often
terrifying sounds.71 This is a characteristic experience of the ascetics-anchorites
who put their spiritual strength and faith to a test in the mystical and dangerous
setting of caves and the wilds. That experience, described many times in ascetic
literature and known as the mysterium tremendum, is the central feature of the
type of ascetic habitats that functions and is perceived predominantly as the
locus horridus.72
The origin of yet another cave complex, very similar to the Studenica one
in type and purpose, has been attributed to St Sava of Serbia: the hermitages
of the monastery of Mileševa (near Prijepolje, south-western Serbia) situated in
the gorge of the Mileševka river about two kilometres south of the monastery.
Not even in this case is the founding of the hesychasteria documented in writ-
ten sources. But it is linked to Sava directly by local tradition and a note made
in 1508 in a manuscript copy of the Life of Saint Sava written by Teodosije of
Hilandar. The note says that the Life was copied by dijak Vladislav “in the desert
of St Sava”.73 Yet another supporting argument is the fact that Sava had a crucial
role in the inception and overall design of the monastery of Mileševa, the foun-
dation and funerary church of his nephew, king Vladislav.74

70 Personal observations made during field surveys. As for animal life, eagles and falcons
are frequently seen flying above the Upper Hermitage, and there are also ravens and
swallows.
71 On this see D. Popović, “Monastic wilderness as a cultural construct” (in press).
72 della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 196 and passim.
73 Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi, vol. 1, 124.
74 M. Čanak-Medić and O. Kandić, Arhitektura prve polovine XIII veka, vol. I: Crkve
u Raškoj. Crkva Vaznesenja Hristovog u Mileševi (Belgrade: Republički zavod za zaštitu
spomenika kulture, 1995), 129–143; O. Kandić, S. Popović and R. Zarić, Manastir
Mileševa (Belgrade: Republički zavod za zaštitu spomenika kulture, 1995); B. Todić,
“Serbian Monumental Art of the 13th Century”. In Sacral Art of the Serbian Lands in
the Middle Ages, eds. D. Vojvodić and D. Popović, (Belgrade: The Serbian National
116 Balcanica LV (2024)

The hermitages of Mileševa sit in a remarkably picturesque landscape

of the almost impassable gorge of the Mileševka river which can still boast rare
and even endemic animal and plant species. Their builders used natural rock
shelters in the northern vertical cliff beneath the medieval fortress known as
Mileševac. The complex consisted of three main units. The so-called “Western
Hermitage” served as a dwelling, and so did the “Upper Hermitage”, which was
set up high in the cliff and probably functioned as a scriptorium as well. The
complex known as “Savine vode” (Sava’s Waters) was cultic and sacral in charac-
ter. One of its caves was converted to a chapel, which is still visited by pilgrims.
In the cave opposite it is the “holy spring”, traditionally believed by the faithful to
have healing properties. The remains discovered on the narrow strip of level land
within the Savine vode area indicate a small, undoubtedly wooden, church. The
surviving pieces of church “furniture” – a two-part altar and a seat cut in the rock
– are the only of the kind in Serbian “rock architecture”. Among the curiosities of
the complex is the natural channel connecting the Upper Hermitage and Savine
vode which ensured the kelliotes’ safety and relatively easy access to the drinking
water from the spring.75
Much like the Upper Hermitage of Studenica, the cave complex of
Mileševa makes a powerful impression by the dramatic beauty of the landscape
which inspires mixed feelings – admiration and fascination on the one hand, and
unease and fear over the unknowns such inhospitable and dangerous landscapes
might hide.76 Both complexes may therefore be given the epithet of locus terribi-
lis for more than one reason. Also impressive in both cases is the mastery of the
repertoire of “rock architecture” shown by the builders. In the Mileševa hermit-
ages it is reflected in many ingenious solutions in rendering the found “God-
created”, i.e. “not-made-by-hands”, rocks and caves suitable for the habitation and
activities of the kelliotes. Apart from the usual ones – rock-cut paths, steps and
handholds, niches and retaining walls – the exploration discovered some quite
inventive creations. To be singled out are the already mentioned pieces of church
furniture, the interventions in the cave channel and the solutions for bridging
vertical distances between the structures at different levels. Some undertakings
may be regarded as a true feat, such as the construction of the multi-storeyed
Upper Hermitage in a vertical, practically inaccessible rock, and using massive
timber elements.77 All of this suggests not only highly skilled builders, practised

Committee of Byzantine Studies, P.E. Službeni glasnik, Institute for Byzantine Studies
SASA, 2016), 219–220 (with bibliography).
75 D. Popović and M. Popović, “Isposnice manastira Mileševe”, Saopštenja L (2018),
9–32 (with bibliography).
76 More on this in D. Popović, “Monastic wilderness as a cultural construct” (in press).
77 D. Popović and M. Popović, “Isposnice manastira Mileševe”, 12–24, 27–28.
 D. Popović,The Landscape of the Monastic Endeavour 117

in the art of cave architecture, but also a well-versed originator of the idea. It is
not difficult to imagine in that role Sava of Serbia, who walked Mount Athos to
“deserts and caves” […] visiting all venerable and righteous men in the deserts”,78
and, on his journey through the Judean desert, carefully “studied the cave of the
holy father Sabas and all dwelling places in the desert”.79
The distinguishing features of the ascetic monastic communities initiated
and conceived by St Sava of Serbia have been emphasized in scholarship more
than once. Their most important common characteristics were a set of particular
rules (typikon), regulating the kelliotic way of life, and the fact that those hermit-
ages were places for the monastic elite and centres of manuscript copying.80 To
be added to these general characteristics is the choice of their natural setting,
well-considered and suited to the purpose. In that respect, as we have seen, Sava
followed two main and complementary models of the monastic desert – locus
amoenus and locus horridus. As so many of Sava’s other works and achievements,
these models of anchoritic dwellings became a lasting legacy in the Serbian mi-
lieu as regards both the organization of monastic life and the architectural shap-
ing and harmonious integration of the kellia into the landscape.81
An important aspect of Sava’s hesychasteria concerns the complex origin
of their models and the multiple layers of their meaning. Although patterned
on the ancient hallowed models which, with variations, are commonplace in
Eastern Christian desert monasticism and “rock architecture”, these hesychast-
eria were founded on authentic personal experience – Sava’s and his followers’
– through personal practice and in one’s own milieu; hence their status of spe-
cial sacred places, loci memoriae of a sort bearing a strong mark of identity.82 It
is the landscape endowed with extraordinary natural features that lends a spe-
cial dimension to such places. Modern scholarly discourse attaches particularly
importance to that fact. Researchers in landscape studies emphasize that the
landscape is an important visual and environmental setting for spiritual and cul-
tural contents open to a wide range of ideas and messages. What may be taken
as a representative example are precisely the anchoritic habitats that combine
an iconic picturesque landscape, spiritual contents and cultural heritage, as well

78 Domentijan, Život svetoga Save i Život svetoga Simeona, 67.

79 Teodosije, Žitija, 225; D. Popović, “Pustinožiteljstvo svetog Save Srpskog”, 72–74
(with sources).
80 D. Bogdanović, “Predgovor”. In Sveti Sava, Sabrani spisi, 14–16; Popović, Todić and
Vojvodić, Dečanska pustinja, 202–203; M. Davidović, “Srpski skriptoriji od XII do XVII
veka“. In Svet srpske rukopisne knjige (XII do XVII vek), eds. Z. Rakić and I. Špadijer,
(Belgrade: SANU, 2016), 49–88.
81 For more on this see D. Popović in Popović, Todić and Vojvodić, Dečanska pustinja,
177–186 (with relevant literature).
82 della Dora, Landscape, Nature and the Sacred, 199.
118 Balcanica LV (2024)

as the opportunity of being experienced firsthand by the faithful and pilgrims,

tourists and researchers.83 Viewed from that perspective, Sava’s hermitages, with
their immeasurable historical value, spiritual charisma, creative architectural so-
lutions and, moreover, located in the untouched nature of extraordinary quali-
ties, may with good reason be regarded as a national treasure – a source of col-
lective memory and a link between past and present.

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