The Serbian Orthodox Church and the faithful today remember a saint from our region. It is the Venerable Mother Angelina, daughter of Gjergj Arijaniti Komneni, medieval lord of the region of Konjuh and Shkumbin, and wife of Stefan Branković, son of the Serbian Despot Đurađ Branković.
The secular name of the Venerable Mother Angelina was Angelina Branković. She was an exceptionally educated woman who owned one of the largest libraries in this region. Even today, her remains can be seen in the Krušedol Monastery. In 1460, Angelina married the blind Stefan Branković, the exiled Serbian Despot, with whom she shared all the troubles that befell him in later life, both in Serbia, Albania, and Italy. With him, she had two sons, Maksim and Jovan, and a daughter, Mara, whom she raised in the Christian spirit.
After her husband’s death, she became a nun and began engaging in acts of mercy, which led the people to call her “Mother Angelina.” She outlived both her husband and her three children, and despite the hardship she struggled with, she transferred her husband’s relics three times, and her sons’ relics twice.
Throughout the entire Service, Angelina is addressed as mother, venerable, most blessed, ever-blessed, worthy of blessing, and blessed. Her Christian virtues are also expressed – the purity of her ascetic life, boundless mercy, patience and wisdom, the devotion of a wife, and the self-sacrifice of a mother.
Angelina is considered the patroness of the poor and oppressed, and throughout her entire life and legacy, she conveyed the message that physical poverty is unimportant as long as the heart is fulfilled. Spiritual misery is far more dangerous than material poverty, reads the lesson of her life.
PRAYER TO VENERABLE ANGELINA
Oh, Venerable Angelina, our good and merciful mother, help us, your disobedient children. You, our good mother, had a difficult life on Earth, but with God’s help, you courageously won all battles and joyfully settled your soul in the light of the Kingdom of Heaven. From your home, the Church of Christ was gilded and adorned with your holy husband Stefan, and holy sons Jovan and Maksim. You also had an immensely great and compassionate heart toward all who were in trouble. That is why the pious Serbian people called you by the most beautiful word God gave – mother. For you are the mother of all of us, your Serbian children, who, although we are sinful and most sinful, still love and respect you and turn to you for help. And what mother does not love her children, even when they commit the greatest sins? Like a wise mother, she corrects them, but does not cease to love them. Therefore, you too, our good mother, correct us from Heaven, correct us with the rod of God, but do not deny us your love. Remind us with the hand of God’s justice, and with the hand of love strengthen us and return us from the path of injustice to the path of truth and goodness.
We pray to you, good mother, that through your prayers to the Lord you give us every blessing from Heaven: health to the sick, strength to the weak, hope to the desperate, daily bread to the hungry, children to the childless, home and comfort to the exiled, and to all who pray to you for something, give according to your great mercy, as much as they need. But give us even more, our good mother, heavenly treasures by which the soul is cleansed, which strengthen us in fulfilling God’s commandments, which lead us toward goodness, and take us away from every evil. For if we do not escape from evil in this world, how shall we escape in that one, if we do not cleanse ourselves from filth here, how shall we there, where only what we brought from here is considered.
Help us to die to this world, just as you died to the world, desiring treasure that is imperishable and eternal. Let our treasure also be in Heaven, so that our heart may also be in Heaven, and not here where everything rots and disappears, where thief steals and moth and rust destroy. For if we spend all our strength on the treasures of this world, for just a handful of earthly dust, which we will not take with us anyway, then even you will not be able to help us, our good mother. But if we try at least a little, cry out at least a little to the Lord through you, His Heavenly Bride, then your help will pour out upon us countless Heavenly treasures, which will strengthen us not to turn away from the narrow path of salvation, even if a hundred deaths await us on it.
It is true that our soul is all torn apart by sin and miserable, but the Merciful God has also prepared a remedy – repentance. May at least a part of that true repentance which you offered to the Lord be born in us as well, our holy mother. May your warm tears that you shed daily for the Serbian people revive that Divine within us, so that we understand that we owe God much, much, but that He will easily forgive us that debt, if only we sincerely and with tears ask Him for forgiveness.
Therefore, take pity on us, our dear mother Angelina, holy Abbess of Krušedol, and help us to be saved from all evil, so that one day, through your prayers to the Lord, we may enter the rest of the Kingdom of Heaven, where everyone gratefully glorifies the Holy Consubstantial and Undivided Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.
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Source: Alo; Photo: SPC