St. Angelina of Serbia, the Holy Mother Angelina

Who was St. Angelina of Serbia?

St. Angelina of Serbia was a fifteenth-century princess, wife and widow whom the Serbian Orthodox Church honors as the Venerable Mother Angelina. Born Angelina Arianiti, the daughter of an Albanian prince, she married the blind Serbian despot Stephen Branković, lived most of her life as a refugee, carried her husband's body back to his homeland, and outlived both of her sons before ending her days as a nun. Her husband and both sons are saints too. We keep her memory on July 30, and her relics rest at Krušedol Monastery in the Fruška Gora hills of northern Serbia.

Her family lived through the collapse of Christian Serbia under the Ottoman advance. In their story the Serbian Church has always seen something more than politics: a household that lost a throne and kept the faith.

The bride of a blind prince

Angelina was born around 1440, a daughter of the Albanian prince George Arianiti. (The short English life printed by the Orthodox Church in America calls her the daughter of "Prince George Skenderbeg," but its fuller account of her family names her father as George Arianiti. Skanderbeg was the great Albanian commander of the age, and Stephen came to his principality as a refugee.)

Her husband, Stephen Branković, was born in 1417, a son of the Serbian despot George Branković. In 1441 the Ottoman sultan Murad II had him blinded, so when his father died he could not inherit, and his younger brother Lazar became despot instead. After Lazar's death in 1458 the blind Stephen ruled for a short time before he was pushed aside, and he went into exile. In Albania he found shelter and, in 1460, a wife. They married with her parents' blessing, and God gave them three children, among them two sons, George and John.

Exile and widowhood

Ottoman pressure followed the family, and they fled first within Albania and then to Italy. There Stephen died in 1476. The OCA's life notes that his body was found to be incorrupt. (Its shorter life of Angelina gives the year as 1468; the fuller account of the family, which follows the historians, has 1476.) He had been blind for thirty-five years, a ruler who never really ruled, and the Serbian Church remembers him as the Righteous Stephen the Blind.

Angelina was left a widow with young children and no country. She turned to the king of Hungary, who gave the family the town of Kupinovo in Srem, on the Sava River. In 1486 she left Italy with her sons and brought Stephen's body with her, so that he could be buried in his own land.

Mother of saints

Both her sons were heirs to the title of despot. George gave up his claim in favor of his brother, became a monk under the name Maksim; icons show him in a bishop's vestments. John married but had no sons, and he died young around 1502–1503. The OCA's life records that "many miracles took place before his holy relics."

Angelina outlived them all. She had lost a throne, a husband and two sons, and the lives say nothing of bitterness. Then, "mindful of her soul's salvation," as her life puts it, she entered a women's monastery. She died in peace around 1520 and was buried in the same tomb as her sons at Krušedol, the monastery of her family in the Fruška Gora hills.

Miracles at the relics

The Orthodox lives of the Brankovićs record that the relics of John and his parents were later "glorified by many signs." These are reported healings from local tradition. They were never examined in a formal process; in the Orthodox Church, saints like Angelina are recognized through the steady veneration of the faithful and the wonders reported at their tombs.

Where the relics of St. Angelina of Serbia are kept: see them on the relics map →

Symbols of St. Angelina in art

• Nun's veil and mantle: in most icons she wears the dark robes of a nun, since she ended her life in monastic profession.
• The cross: she holds a slender red cross, the sign of a saint who "took up the cross and followed Christ," as her troparion sings.
• Model of a church: some icons show her holding a church, the sign of a founder or benefactor of a monastery.
• Royal dress and crown: newer icons, like the fresco at St. Sophia in Berat, may show her as a crowned princess instead.

She almost always appears with her family. An icon of a nun standing beside a bishop and two crowned princes is very likely the holy Brankovićs, with Angelina among them.

Her relics and feast

Krušedol, the burial monastery of the Branković family, still keeps Angelina's relics in a reliquary in its church. Pilgrims come especially on her feast days: July 30 (August 12 on the civil calendar in Serbia), July 1, and December 10, when she is remembered with Stephen and John. See the feast day calendar.

Troparion of St. Angelina

The Orthodox Church sings this troparion in her honor, in the translation of the Orthodox Church in America:

In you the image was preserved with exactness, O Mother, / for taking up your cross, you followed after Christ. / By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away, / but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. / Therefore, most venerable Mother Angelina your spirit rejoices with the Angels.

Let us ask Mother Angelina to pray for widows, for refugees who have lost their homes, and for mothers who hope to see their children grow in holiness.