Anastasia of Serbia

Venerable Anastasia of Serbia, in the world Ana, was the wife of the Grand Župan Stefan Nemanja and the mother of Saint Sava, the first archbishop of Serbia. She became a nun in 1196 and died on 21 June 1200. The Serbian Orthodox Church venerates her as a saint and keeps her feast on 21 June.

Her origin is not known. The old sources do not tell it, and various guesses have been made in history, that she came from Bosnia or was a relative of the Byzantine emperors or of French kings. The time and circumstances of the marriage are not known either. Some later chronicles speak of 1142 or 1143. Saint Sava calls her Nemanja's only wife.

Mentioned only in a few short passages of the lives of her husband, she is shown as humble and pious, and the medieval writers admire her character and deeds. Her son Stefan describes her in the words of Scripture about the worthy wife, more precious than pearls, and prizes her obedience and kindness. She took part in the renewal of the monastery of the Mother of God that her husband was building in the Toplica region, after his meeting with the emperor Manuel Komnenos at Niš in 1164. Ana stood at the head of the monastery, which suggests that it was probably a convent. Together with Nemanja she was presented as its founder.

Together with her husband she was tonsured in 1196 with the name Anastasia, after Saint Anastasia of Sirmium, while Nemanja became the monk Simeon. According to Sava, Anastasia went to the monastery of the Mother of God “in Ras,” that is, either the one in Toplica or another in Raška. A later charter of Studenica names the place Pridvorica, near Studenica, as the place of her life as a nun.

She died on 21 June 1200 (in some sources 1199), though the Typikon of Studenica gives the date as 21 July and the Typikon of Hilandar gives 21 June, which became her feast day. She was buried at Studenica. Above the shrine with her relics a fresco of her at prayer was painted in the sixteenth century, probably over an older one.

From her marriage to Stefan Nemanja she had three sons and several daughters: Stefan the First-⁠Crowned, Rastko (Saint Sava) and Vukan, Grand Prince of Duklja and later of Serbia, as well as Euphemia, who married Manuel Doukas of Thessalonica, and another daughter, married to Tihomir Asen and mother of the Bulgarian tsar Constantine Tikh.