Stefan Vladislav

Stefan Vladislav was King of Serbia from 1234 to 1243, the middle son of Stefan the First-⁠Crowned of the Nemanjić dynasty. The Serbian Orthodox Church honours him as Saint Vladislav, the devout ruler who built the monastery of Mileševa and brought the relics of Saint Sava home to it.

Family and accession

He was born around 1198 to King Stefan the First-⁠Crowned and Queen Eudokia, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios III. He had two full brothers, Radoslav, who was older, and Predislav, who was younger, as well as a half-⁠brother, Uroš, born later. Their father took monastic vows before he departed to the Lord in 1227, and Radoslav was crowned king at Žiča by his uncle, Archbishop Sava. Vladislav and Uroš received lands of their own, while Predislav became Bishop of Hum under the name Sava and later Archbishop of Serbia.

According to the biographer Teodosije the Hilandarian, Radoslav ruled well at first but came more and more under the influence of his wife Anna, daughter of the Epirote ruler Theodore Komnenos Doukas. The Serbian nobles disliked this Greek influence. When Theodore was defeated and captured by Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria in 1230, Radoslav's position weakened, and in the autumn of 1233 part of the nobility rose against him. Radoslav fled to Dubrovnik, and Vladislav was crowned king.

Saint Sava and the monastery of Mileševa

Archbishop Sava tried to quiet the quarrel between the brothers. He seems to have felt closer to Radoslav, the lawful ruler, but he wished to spare the land a civil war. Through his care Vladislav married Beloslava, daughter of Ivan Asen II, and Serbia came under Bulgaria's political protection. Radoslav then returned home, was tonsured a monk with the name John, and lived the rest of his life in peace.

In 1234 Vladislav began the building of Mileševa, which he meant to be his own place of burial. His uncle Sava laboured most for it, yet Teodosije and Domentijan both bear witness that the monastery was raised in the king's name. Sava went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land and fell asleep in the Lord on the way home, in Bulgaria, and was buried with honour in the church of the Forty Holy Martyrs at Tarnovo. Vladislav asked several times for the relics, and after repeated refusals he went to Tarnovo himself and obtained them from his father-⁠in-⁠law. The saint was laid to rest at Mileševa, where his relics were venerated as wonderworking throughout the Middle Ages and the Ottoman centuries.

Reign and retirement

Vladislav strengthened Serbia's ties with Dubrovnik by a trade treaty and defended the maritime province of Hum, which Hungarian crusaders were attacking. After the death of Ivan Asen II unrest began in the land. The Mongols under Kadan invaded Hungary and laid waste the Balkans, and the Serbian nobility rose against the king. In 1243 Vladislav gave up the throne in favour of his younger brother Uroš I and remained governor of Zeta.

He departed this life in the second half of the thirteenth century, after 1264, though some sources give the year 1267. By Beloslava he had a son, Stefan, who became a monk at the Esphigmenou monastery on the Holy Mountain, and Deza, as well as a daughter. Serbian tradition remembers him as the founder of Mileševa, where he was laid to rest, and the Church honours him as a saint.