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Stanković Vlada,
King Milutin and Sinai
Serbian Archbishop Danilo II (1324–1337), the writer of the Life of St. King Milutin, his patron, has created a unique representation of deep, essential connection between his hero and new Serbian saint, and the Holy city of Jerusalem and the Holy Mount Sinai. Serbian king Milutin (r. 1282–1321), a tireless ktetor of churches and monasteries, had founded the monastery of Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel in Jerusalem, but Danilo II passes silently over this fact, choosing instead to underscore the higher connection of the new saint with Jerusalem and Sinai, and thus the inclusion of the Serbs into the Holy history of Christianity. Closing the circle of his narrative unit dedicated to King Milutin’s foundations, Danilo II emphasized the new saint’s many gifts to the Holy mountain Sinai, in a manner similar to his description of Milutin’s patronage in Jerusalem, at the beginning of that section. While the patronage of King Milutin in both Jerusalem and оn Sinai was of more material, this-worldly nature, evident in the vast number of Serbian Cyrillic manuscripts preserved in the monastery of St. Catherine оn Mount Sinai from the fourteenth century, Danilo II opted to elevate the achievements of the new Serbian saint to another level, which connected King Milutin directly to the ground-laying activities of his grandfather, St. Sava.
