East or West

Although there is some dispute about a letter that St Sava wrote to the bishop of the autocephalic Serbian Church, Irinej, with the words that the Serbs were destined to be “East in the West and West in the East”, the famous quote marked the Serbian history in general. Its highest points of the Serbian state and culture were when it managed to be not fully in the West and not fully in the East, but combining the best of both.

Serbia at the border line of civilisations as if destined to connect the two world. And whenever it lacked the strength to do so, it suffered either from the West or from the East. The greatest successor to St Sava in the 20th century was bishop Nikоlај of Serbia, who left the Serbs a vow that if they wished to survive, they had to rise with the God-Man Christ above the East and the West. If they were not better, if they could not serve in love both East and West, heal the illnesses of the world, they would disappear from the world scene.

ART

Above East and West, Saint Bishop Nikоlај of Serbia