At the solemn reception held on 29 February 2024 at the Patriarchal See in Belgrade, His Holiness Serbian Patriarch kyr Porfirije presented the Order of Saint Sava of the third degree to Academician Mirjana Živojinović from Belgrade.

In the decision of the Holy Synod of Bishops, read by Protopresbyter Đorđe Stojisavljević, the Head of the Office of the Serbian Patriarch, it is stated that the high decoration of the Serbian Orthodox Church is awarded to Academician Mirjana Živojinović as a sign of recognition for her lifelong dedication to living in the faith of Saint Sava, particularly demonstrated by tireless promotion of the ethos and culture of Saint Sava through her scholarly work in the Homeland and the Diaspora.

Presenting the high decoration of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije emphasized: – It is a great blessing for me, in the name of the Holy Synod, to present to you the Order of Saint Sava for your love towards your own and our Church and for dedication to the work regarding the Holy Mountain and especially the monastery of Hilandar. The Holy Mountain is a monastic state, a space inhabited solely by monks. In the spirit of modern times, it is hardly comprehensible and almost unacceptable that there is a space and a place where women do not enter, just as on the other hand, we have women's monasteries where there are areas where men do not enter. In the spirit of today, this is often absolutely unacceptable and incomprehensible. When one thinks about the Holy Mountain and talks about monks, often values and words of the Gospel are erased because of the inability to understand what it is all about, and often because there is a lack of desire for it to be acceptable – i. e. the will and providence of God about man are experienced as foreign. When we talk about monasticism and the Holy Mountain, we talk about the longing and desire of man to be an authentic human being in order to achieve what the Apostle Paul speaks of, that in the Church of Christ, which is a manifestation of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God, there is neither male nor female.

– The Holy Mountain, as a space inhabited by monks, is an expression of the need of human nature, regardless of whether one is male or female, in which the icon of God triumphs, and where opposites and differences are overcome. Hence, regardless of the fact that the Holy Mountain is a space inhabited by men, i.e., monks, it has the Most Holy Theotokos as its Protector. And not only that it has the Most Holy Theotokos as its Protector, but it was also, according to the tradition of the Holy Mountain, founded as an expression of the will of the Most Holy Theotokos. The monks who live there, naturally, turn to all saints to be their intercessors before the Throne of God, but still, mostly, and above all, they turn to the Most Holy Theotokos as their Protectress, so that She may intercede for the prayers of the monks living on the Holy Mountain before the Throne of Her Son, but also to protect the whole world with Her Veil. And here, you, precisely as a woman, have this blessing, and for us, it is joy that you dedicated your work to the Holy Mountain and the Monastery of Hilandar, which makes you a member of a very small group of people who have achieved a lot, not only in terms of quantity but also in terms of quality, in the study of all aspects of life on the Holy Mountain. The fruits of your work are a lasting value not only for us who live in this time but also for generations after us. Due to this and due to your love, we considered it appropriate for the Holy Synod and our Church to award you the Order of Saint Sava as a sign of gratitude. May the Lord keep you and grant you blessings and strength to continue with the same energy and dedication to pursue the work that already yields such fruits and results that are unsurpassed and enduring – concluded Patriarch Porfirije.

Expressing gratitude for the high decoration, Academician Mirjana Živojinović stated: – Your Holiness and Your Graces, I extend my immeasurable gratitude to you and all those who deemed my work worthy of this highest recognition – the Order of Saint Sava. As it is well known, Saint Sava, along with the monk-father, Saint Simeon, is the founder of our greatest holy place – the Hilandar Monastery. My work, which relates to various aspects of monastic life in the past, primarily the care and efforts of the hegumens and prominent brethren for its development and progress, is based on official documents. They are the most reliable source for all of this. I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, to find and understand what these documents speak of. I believe, and this may sound very immodest from my side, that even Saint Sava himself has helped me in this and that my work has received his recognition through these order. Thank you.

The ceremony, held in the grand hall of the Patriarchal See, attended by representatives of the highest scholarly and cultural institutions and members of the family of Academician Mirjana Živojinović, was also attended by His Grace Bishop of Bačka kyr Irinej, member of the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and the Very Reverend Archimandrite Nektarije (Đurić), Chief Secretary of the Holy Synod.

***

Academician Mirjana Živojinović was born in 1938 in Sarajevo. She attended high school in Dubrovnik and studied history at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, where she graduated in 1960. As a scholarship holder of the Greek Government, she studied in Athens in 1966/67. She obtained her magister’s degree under the mentorship of Professor Georgije Ostrogorski in 1966, defending the thesis Judiciary in the Greek Regions of the Serbian Empire. She obtained her Ph.D. in 1970 by defending the thesis Holy Mountain Cells and Towers in the Middle Ages.

She was elected as an Assistant at the Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1961, as a Research Associate in 1970, as a Senior Research Associate in 1978, and as a Research Advisor in 1991. She was elected as a Corresponding Member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2006, and as a Full Member in 2012. In her scientific work, she is primarily interested in the history of the Hilandar Monastery and the Holy Mountain. In order to study the sources of material, she visited manuscript libraries in Athens, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, as well as the Byzantine Studies Center in Paris. In 1984, she became a member of the Hilandar Committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. As a fellow of the prestigious Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Center in 1985/86, she stayed in Washington. In the same year, Professor Paul Lemerle entrusted her with work in the Paris team of researchers of the archives of the Holy Mountain monasteries. In connection with this, she visited Paris several times from 1987 to 2004, which resulted in successful cooperation with Professor Dyonisios Papahrisantou, an exceptional expert in paleography of medieval documents of the archives of the Holy Mountain monasteries.

For the publication of the first volume of the Greek acts of the Hilandar Monastery, as well as the twentieth volume of the prestigious series Archives de l'Athos, in collaboration with Vasiliki Kravari and Christophe Girom, she received the Schlumberger Award from the French Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1999. In the following period, she was the head of the joint project of the Hilandar Monastery and the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts for the publication of Serbian medieval acts of the Hilandar Monastery.

Since 2010, she has been the president of the Hilandar Committee of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and the editor of the Recueil de Chilandar. She is a member of the Philological-Historical Society Parnassos in Athens. From 2004 to 2016, she was the president of the Society of Friends of the Holy Mountain and the editor of their publication Narratives about the Holy Mountain. She participated in numerous international Byzantine congresses and symposiums dedicated to all aspects of life on the Holy Mountain. She is a member of the Historical Department and the Scholarly Council of the Balkan and Byzantine Studies Institutes. Her numerous studies and monographs classify her today among the leading experts in the history of the Holy Mountain during the Byzantine period.