Kult gradačke ktitorke kraljice i monahinje Jelene

Abstract

U vezi sa svetačkim kultom kraljice i monahinje Jelene († 8. februar 1314. godine) postoje duboka neslaganja, koja se kreću od mišljenja da je bila "kanonizovana" već 1317. godine, do toga da nikad nije dobila kult. Uvidom u poznate i u još neobjavljene pisane izvore može se ustanoviti da je stvaranje kulta gradačkoj ktitorki započeo arhiepiskop Danilo II pisanjem Žitija kraljice Jelene desetak godina posle njene smrti, dok je druge proslavne sastave dobila tek oko 1600. godine. Služba joj nikada nije bila napisana, zbog čega je i njen kult, u liturgijskom smislu, ostao nedovršen. Uprkos tome, Jelena je od početka uživala izuzetno, neretko kultno poštovanje, koje je ostavilo značajne tragove u književnosti i umetnosti.

The Serbian Queen Jelena was the wife of King Uroš I (1242-1276). After the violent change on the throne (1276), Jelena got from the new King Dragutin a "state" of her own to administer, vast areas she practically ruled independently, which she also continued to do during the reign of her other son, King Milutin. She became a nun around 1285, but she continued to rule in her lands at least until 1306. She died on 8 February 1314 and was buried at Gradac Monastery, which she had built already at the beginning of her reign. Queen Jelena acquired her status of an exceptional and revered person, both as a ruler and as a nun, even during her lifetime that was filled with good and pious deeds, charities, fasting, prayers and tears. Her death was blessed and in all aspects like the death of the selected God's favourites. Three years later (1317), her body was found intact, not decomposed and as if covered in dew, which were the signs of particular grace, and then it was taken out of the grave and laid down in a coffin in front of the sanctuary screen. The veneration of such a Queen and nun also continued after her death and yet still limited to the court, Monastery Sopoćani, with which she used to have multiple ties, and undoubtedly Gradac where the memory of her was longest and most intensive. It was only three centuries later that Jelena "declared" herself as a thaumatourgos, through myrrh gushing or the fine scent of the remains (which is more probable) and through miraculous healing of the ill. As a saint, she was invoked in pleas and prayers, she was expected to render help and praises were offered to her at the church. The liturgical shaping up of Jelena's sainthood cult started very early. Only a dozen years after her death, Archbishop Danilo II wrote her Biography, with all the characteristics of a proper hagiography; the writer, however, does not call her holy in any part of his work, only blessed, and he does not mention at all any of her miracles either. A lot of time had passed before other necessary celebratory writings dedicated to Saint Jelena were written. The centre of her cult was Gradac Monastery, in the church of which her remains lay, as it appears, until the end of the 17th century. An impetus to the revival and further shaping up of the cult of Queen and nun Jelena was given by the Metropolitan of Ras Visarion around 1600. It was probably he who wrote the first doxologies, hymns and collect-hymns, and perhaps even the synaxarion. According to the usual practice, they were written on the basis of the older hagiographic and hymnographic texts dedicated either to Jelena or to some other saints. They contained a completed hagiological image of Jelena as a ruler turned nun and a venerable woman who became famous through her miracle-working and as a representative of the faithful before God. There are signs that the liturgical use of the cult of Jelena spread also outside Gradac: the only known transcript of her synaxarion from the second half of the 17th century was created at the Holy Mount and was intended for Mileševa Monastery, which means that it was read also there on every 8 February. It should be presumed that there were more transcripts of this synaxarion, as well as of hymns and collect-hymns, which is quite certain for the extended Biography of Queen Jelena written by Danilo II. In order for the Jelena's cult to have a full liturgical form, it was necessary for the saint also to get a service or Akolouthia, but it was never written for her. This was either omitted by the Metropolitan of Ras Visarion who was the most responsible - after Archbishop Danilo II - for the hagiographic and hymnographic shaping of her sainthood cult or he never got to do it. Because of this lack of service, in the liturgical sense the cult of Queen Jelena thus remained unfinished. The postponed and never accomplished writing of the Service was probably contributed to by the difficult circumstances in the last decades of the 17th century when Gradac Monastery, the main centre for the spreading of Jelena's cult reverence, got deserted. This cult, however, continued to be upheld for quite a while, mostly at the top of the Serbian Church. The artistic, painting materials show that the veneration of Queen Jelena remained and even spread in the 18th century when it also received a proper position within the religious and political programme of the Metropolitan of Karlovci. It was only in the next century that Jelena was introduced into the church calendar under the date of 30 October, where together with King Dragutin (Venerable Teoktist) she was joined to the Holy King Milutin.