Talk:List of saints of the Serbian Orthodox Church

Rename, two options

The previous rename took place without any discussion. According to [1] the Eastern Orthodox churches recognize each others' saints by default. So e.g. saints of the Church of Greece are also saints of the Serbian Orthodox Church and vice versa. In orded to reduce overlap this list should at least be renamed to something like List of saints canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church, in order to clarify that it is not about recognition. But that in turn may raise verification issues with saints from long time ago. So a safer option is List of Serbian Orthodox saints. Marcocapelle (talk) 08:08, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

@Marcocapelle Thanks for starting this discussion.

I am very much in favour of List of saints canonized by the Serbian Orthodox Church. It tells it like it is, unambiguously. If other (orthodox) churches want to recognise the saints canonised by the SOC as well, that's fine, but that's not really as defining as those canonised by the SOC itself. The church which does the canonising should be front and centre to any effort at listing and categorising saints, because they are the decision-makers here.

I don't really see the advantage of the second option. What does Serbian Orthodox saints even mean? People who were canonised by any church whatsoever, but identified with Serbian Orthodoxy while they were alive? That seems like a trivial intersection that is very prone to WP:OR, just like the "nationality" of the saint when he/she was alive (particularly in pre-modern times when "nationality" wasn't really a thing the way it is today). NLeeuw (talk) 15:29, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

I might add that the formula List of saints canonized by church X also really helps with chronological and historiographical issues that I ran into with List of Russian saints (until 15th century) and List of saints in the Russian Orthodox Church. Because "until 15th century" does not signify when the canonisation took place, nor who is doing the canonising, but when the person who was canonised later (sometimes many centuries later) died. So what we end up with is a confused mess, where the Russian Orthodox Church in 1909 is canonising people who died in 862 and 885, even though the title says "saints (until 15th century)". Also important: what we now call the "Russian Orthodox Church" didn't exist in the 15th century, let alone the 9th century, and "Russian" didn't really exist as a "nationality" yet either. So there is a lot of WP:OR/WP:SYNTH and just general confusion going on here. On the other hand, if we just split it into, for example, List of saints canonized by the Metropolis of Kiev and all Rus', List of saints canonized by the Metropolis of Moscow and all Rus', List of saints canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, that would make a lot more sense, and avoid anachronisms. NLeeuw (talk) 15:40, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Why can't the criteria for being included in this article be 1. be a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and/or 2. be canonised by the Serbian Orthodox Church? 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 14:53, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Bis-Serjetà? raises a valid point here. — Sadko (words are wind) 15:15, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Revamped the article; criteria for inclusion?

Hi, as part of my edit, I added the criteria for inclusion in the list, with only one of them having to be met, those being:

1. the saint must be of Serbian blood, or
2. the saint must be a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church or one of its predecessors

Based on that criteria, I removed 5 entries (listed below), as they are of disputed Serbian origin and were not officially part of the Serbian Orthodox Church (either living before its establishment or were possibly part of another Orthodox Church); a cursory look at their English WP articles states they are all Bulgarian, however there are claims that they are in fact Serbs. I haven't gotten into the exact details of any of these saints' ethnicities but the contradicting ethnicities seem similar to those claims that Saints Cyril and Methodius were Serbs/Bulgarians/Macedonians or that Saint Petka was a Serb/Bulgarian/Macedonian.

If anyone can research this further to see if they can be included based on the criteria above, it would be much appreciated.

Likewise, I hope my edit which i have spent a considerable amount of my free time working on, is also appreciated.

Cheers!

𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 14:35, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

The only criteria should be whether the Serbian Orthodox Church consideres this person to be a saint, regardless of this person's ethnic origin and to which church this person was part of.

What do you think? Veverve (talk) 15:04, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, what does "consider [...] a saint" mean? Because the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) considers the Apostles, Church Fathers, Desert Fathers, early Christian martyrs et al. as saints, and obviously none of them were Serbian and adding them to this list would make it redundant. Do you mean who the SOC has formally, officially canonised? Because that may also include some barely-related saints such as Gorazd of Prague. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 15:12, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

And I forgot to answer your question; I remain in favour of the original proposition of 2 criteria, with only 1 being required. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 15:31, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I think adding the saints that are common to the whole of E. Orthodoxy is not a good idea.

So, this WP list should only contain saints that were formally and officially canonised by the SOC (so yes, including Gorazd of Prague, etc.).

Should some other E. Orthodox churches have saints in common with the SOC, these saints can be kept in this list of the SOC saints, as long as those are not recognised as saints by all mainstream E. Orthodox churches. Veverve (talk) 15:40, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

So, in your opinion, the only criterion should be an official canonisation by the SOC? It sounds reasonable but then there comes the issue that certain early Serbian saints were never formally canonised (ex. Jovan Vladimir, Arsenije Sremac?, Anastasia of Serbia?, etc.), simply having their cults exist to the modern day. Plus, if that is the criterion, the year of canonisation would probably have to be added to the table itself, which would pose a challenge finding them for every single saint entry. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 15:57, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

And about your final point, (universal) canonisations in 1 EO autocephalous church are recognised amongst all EO churches, in contrast to local canonisations (often done with many Russian Orthodox saints before universal canonisation). So far as I know, all Serbian Orthodox canonisations are universal in nature, as they are added to the "Book of Life" of the SOC a.k.a. "List of Names of the Serbian Church Saints." as per the official SOC website. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 16:04, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I would say being in the Synaxarion of the SOC, including rare special cases where saints may not be mentioned there (if such cases even exist), is a criterion wich can be agreed upon. We cannot add the criterion of the local canonisation, as from what you said the SOC does not perform local canonisation, contrary to what for example the Ec. Patr. does.

I do not believe adding the date of canonisation is a necessity. Nevertheless, it is good to add it if we can find it. Veverve (talk) 22:01, 9 March 2025 (UTC)

I suppose we shall wait for other editors to opine before reaching consensus. 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 14:04, 10 March 2025 (UTC)

Serbs?

Joachim of Osogovo – 29 August [O.S. 16 August]

Gabriel of Lesnovo – 28 January [O.S. 15 January]

Prochorus of Pčinja – 1 November [O.S. 19 October]

George of Kratovo New Martyr – 24 February [O.S. 11 February] and 8 June [O.S. 26 May]

Sinaites: Romylos of Ravanica, Roman, Nestor, Martirije, Sisoje, Zosim of Tuman and Jov – 19 May [O.S. 6 May] 𝔅𝔦𝔰-𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔧𝔢𝔱𝔞? 14:35, 9 March 2025 (UTC)