On the date of and reasons for the writing of Theodosius’s life of St Sava

The Old Serbian writer Theodosius wrote his Life of St Sava according to the older hagiography composed by Domentianus in 1253/4. Both authors were Hilandar monks and wrote the hagiographies of the first Serbian archbishop on Mount Athos. Unlike Domentianus?s work, Theodosius?s Life has not been dated with precision. Helpful in establishing the date of his Life of St Sava are its manuscript copying tradition and reception in Serbian literature and the analysis of its content. This paper shows that from 1317 the Serbian writers Nicodemus and Daniel II drew on Theodosius?s hagiography, which pushes its date further back into the past. On the other hand, the content of the Life suggests that it was written between 1284 and 1292 because it refers to the river Sava as Serbia?s border with Hungary (which it became in 1284), and describes the monastery of Zica as it was before the destruction it sustained in 1292. Both pieces of information have long been noticed and properly explained. Helpful in establishing the date of writing with more precision may also be an examination of the reasons which led to the writing of a new hagiography of St Sava only thirty years after the one written by Domentianus. Among several possible explanations proposed so far, the one discussed in detail here is the different attitude of the two hagiographers towards Rome and the Roman Catholic Church. In Theodosius?s case, it is markedly disapproving. Therefore, the assumption that the union of Lyon (1274-1282) and the developments on Mount Athos linked with it were the reason for writing a new hagiography is accepted and strengthened with further arguments. The new Life gave a much more idealized hagiographic portrayal of St Sava and enriched his image with a new perception of Orthodoxy which made sense only at the time of the triumphant mood inspired by the failure of the union. The proposed conclusion is that Theodosius did not begin writing his Life of St Sava until after 1285, when the condemnation of the patriarch John Bekkos of Constantinople and his teachings put an end to the union of Lyon. The Life could not have been written much after that year either because its tendentiousness had lost all significance already in the 1290s.