According to the Life of Saint Sava, written by monk Teodosije the Hilandarian, Rastko was born into the world because his parents besought God who answered their prayers when they were already advanced in years. They implored Him to give them “one more baby boy, who would give us comfort and by Thy grace be the heir to our throne and scepter in our old age, so we can lean on him and rest our weary souls”. When baby Rastko was born, both of his parents vowed that in order to show their gratitude to God, they would take monastic vows when the twilight of their lives comes near. As a young man, Rastko briefly ruled the appanage of Hum, which included parts of the Croatian coastline at that time and part of the hinterland of present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1193, when he was 18 years old, Rastko took monastic vows at the Saint Panteleimon Monastery (Old Rusik) at Mount Athos, after which he went to the Vatopedi Monastery. When Rastko left to become a monk, at first it caused great distress and grieved his parents, but in fact, it marked a true revival and regeneration of the entire Serbian nation. In 1198, together with his father Nemanja, who at that time already became monk Simeon, Sava breathed new life into the deserted Hilandar Monastery, which was placed under Serbian administration and proclaimed autonomous monastery by royal decree on its autonomy issued by the Byzantine Emperor Alexios III Angelos. When Constantinople fell into the hands of the Crusaders from Western Europe, Sava went back to Serbia and reconciled his brothers Stefan and Vukan over their father’s mortal remains. Saint Sava spent ten years at the Studenica Monastery, where he was Abbott from 1207 to 1217. Thanks to his actions and endeavors, the Serbian Orthodox Church was conferred the status of Archiepiscopate in 1219, thus becoming autocephalous, whereby it was granted the right to independently chose Serbian bishops and archbishops. It was decided that the Archiepiscopate would be seated at the Žiča Monastery, which was the memorial of Sava’s brother, King Stefan the First-Crowned. This was the place where, in 1220, according to his biographers, Sava crowned his brother king, at the great ecclesiastical and national assembly that took place in Žiča. Sava Nemanjić is one of the most important writers and greatest authorities in the field of canon law in the 13th century. His most important works are Hagiography of Saint Simeon, Karyes Typikon, Hilandar Typikon, Studenica Typikon, and the first Serbian legislative act, the so-called Nomocanon, a collection of selected civil laws and ecclesiastical ordinances of the Byzantine Empire, which Sava took upon himself to edit and translate in 1220. It was the first code of law of the Serbian Orthodox Church, whereas the Serbian state was given its first constitution of a sort. While in Sudenica, Sava finished writing the Hagiography of Saint Simeon and also wrote the Studenica Typikon, a codex of monastic life, and the Service to Saint Simeon.

Sava Nemanjić traveled a lot. He went twice to the Holy Land. The first time he journeyed there was in 1229, when he erected lodgings for Serbian monks on pilgrimage at the Monastery of the Holy Cross, not far from Jerusalem, built a monastery at the Mount Zion, and bought the Church of Saint George in the port of Akko. On that occasion, he also bought the Monastery of Saint John the Apostle redeeming it from the Saracens, which is the place where the Last Supper took place. The second time Sava travelled to the Holy Land was 1234-1235, when he visited the Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai, and the Holy Lavra of Saint Sabba the Sanctified, where he was given his abbatial crosier and two valuable and precious icons: the Three-handed Theotokos and the Milk-feeding Theotokos. While travelling back to Serbia, Sava died on 14th January 1236, in the Bulgarian town of Trnovo, when he was 61 years old. In 1237, Sava’s body was taken from Trnovo to the Mileševa Monastery. Sources that have great relevance as accounts of the life of Saint Sava are his two biographies written by monks Domentijan the Hilandarian (1250) and Teodosije the Hilandarian (1290-1292), respectively. More than 350 years after Sava’s death, in retaliation for the Serbian uprising against the Ottoman invader, the Ottoman Turks ordered that Saint Sava’s mortal remains be brought from Mileševa Monastery to Belgrade, where they were publicly burnt in 1594. Now, the magnificent Church of Saint Sava imposingly stands in the place where his remains were burnt at the stake.