The Holy King Milutin.

October 28

From the Prologue

The son of Uros I and Queen Helena and brother of Dragutin, he fought fiercely to defend his faith and his people. He fought against Michael Palaeologus because the latter had accepted union with Rome and was putting pressure on the whole Balkan people and the monks of Athos to accept the Pope. He fought against Shishman, King of Bulgaria, and Nogai, King of the Tartars, to defend his country from them. All his wars were successful, for he prayed constantly to God and put himself in His hands. He built more than forty churches, both in his own land (Treskavac, Gracanica, St George in Nagorid, the Holy Mother of God in Skoplje, Banjska and so forth) and in Salonica, Sophia, Constantinople, Jerusalem and on the Holy Mountain. He entered into rest in the Lord on October 29th, 1320, and his body was soon seen to be uncorrupt and wonderworking. It is still preserved in that state today in the Church of the Holy King in Sophia.

NAME:Author's note: Milutin was married twice, not four times as his detractors would have it; first to Elisabeth, a Hungarian princess, and then to Simonida, a princess of Byzantium.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK