Angelina of Serbia

The Venerable Mother Angelina Branković was the daughter of the Albanian prince Gjergj Arianiti and the wife of the Serbian despot Stefan Branković, then abbess of Krušedol monastery, in Srem, where she fell asleep on 30 July 1520. She was enrolled among the saints by the Serbian Church for her pious life. Her feast is on 1 July, on 30 July (Synaxis of the Serbian Saints) and on 10 December, with her husband, Saint Stefan, and her son, Saint John.

Youth and marriage

She was born around 1440 in Albania, in the renowned Arianiti family, the sixth daughter of Gjergj Arianiti, father-⁠in-⁠law of Skanderbeg, and of Maria Muzaka. She received at her parents' house a good upbringing and education; her love of books is seen from traces of her library at Krušedol, and a bishop describes her as a curious, beautiful and wise woman, fond of books. In November 1460 or in 1461 she married, at Shkodër, the exiled Serbian despot Stefan Branković (blinded, according to some sources), son of Despot Đurađ Branković; they met when Stefan came to northern Albania to visit Skanderbeg, husband of her elder sister Donika. Her first son, George (Đorđe), was born in 1461, named for Skanderbeg and for her father.

Exile in Italy

The couple left Albania, went to Venice, then lived in Friuli, in the old castle of Belgrado on the Tagliamento, bought in 1465 by Stefan with his sister Katarina. They stayed there over ten years, raising their sons George and John and their daughter Maria. Although Stefan's father had been one of the richest men of Serbia, they lived in poverty. Stefan died on 9 October 1476, and Angelina stayed some time with the children in the castle, then asked help of Emperor Frederick III, who gave her the castle of Weitensfeld, in Carinthia. There, in 1485, she married her daughter Maria to Marquess Boniface III of Montferrat, a descendant of the Palaiologoi.

In Srem

Soon afterward came the call of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus, that her son George take up the dignity of Serbian despot (1486). Angelina set out with two sons through Vienna and Buda for Srem, bringing the relics of her husband, which she held to be wonderworking; she arrived in February 1486. Her first residence was Kupinovo, where she soon built the church of the holy Apostle Luke, in which she placed Stefan's relics, and the monastery of Obed. Their land had been conquered by the Turks as early as 1459, and the despotate was such only in name.

Monastic life and Krušedol

In 1509 (in some sources, immediately after the move to Srem) she received monastic tonsure. The same year she sent her confessor, Eugenios, to the Russian grand prince Vasily III, with the petition: Our state now declines, while yours rises; take upon yourself the care of the holy churches and monasteries which your pious ancestors and mine built. She wished to raise a church for her husband's relics, already held wonderworking. She bought land, and with Vasily's help cells for nuns were added; thus arose Krušedol monastery, on Fruška Gora, founded by her sons, George (who became the monk Maxim, a metropolitan) and John, where Angelina was abbess. She herself wrote a life, the Hagiography of Mother Angelina. She fell asleep in 1520 and was buried in the monastery, beside the remains of her son John.

Veneration

The Brankovićes were known among contemporaries for their Orthodox devotion, and Angelina kept the same tradition. The veneration of John began in the first half of the sixteenth century, and his relics and those of the others of the family were moved to the sanctuary at Krušedol. In the Austro-⁠Turkish war of 1716-1718 the Ottomans plundered the monastery and, according to one source, burned the family's relics. Among her descendants is Theodosius, son of Prince Neagoe Basarab. Her image is in frescoes at Krušedol, in the mosaic in the church of Saint Sava in Belgrade and on icons of the seventeenth century; in Russia there is a church dedicated to Saint Alexander Nevsky and Angelina of Serbia at the Makaryev-⁠Pisemsky monastery in Kostroma.