A short biography will serve to better describe what makes this Serbian queen and a saint, who nourished literacy, culture, tradition and creativity, an inspiration even after 7 centuries have passed since her death.
Born during the earlier years of the 13th century, noble birth, Helen of Anjou arrived in Serbia as a future bride for king Uroš, straight through the purple, fragrant rows later named The Valley of Lilacs, along the inaccessible shore of Ibar.
King Uroš and queen Helen were blessed with four children, of which her sons king Dragutin and king Milutin are well known to us. We find the most significant records about queen Helen in “Žitija Kraljeva,” which has been compiled and written by Serbian archbishop Danilo II.
Helen of Anjou has left her mark on the entire middle ages Serbians nation, as the first woman of her age. She was the first in many things: the first female ruler over the Serbian territory, the first diplomat and the first founder amongst women. From the various monasteries and churches she restored on the territories she ruled over, which encompassed Zeta, Trebinje, Plav and Gornji Ibar, the most significant legacy she left to the Serbian church and new generations was the monastery Gradac, her endowment.
In her castle, she collected books and organised transcriptions of them, which were then bound, so she is considered the creator of the first library, in those times known as “knjigohranilište” (literally translated as the place where books are stored). The transcripts, together with all the other highly valuable donations, she donated to numerous monasteries and churches. As part of her legacy, she also left the noble deed of taking in poor girls and widows, whom she fed, taught how to read and write, as well as proper manners and handiwork, that introduced the first model of a school in Serbia, taking inspiration from the west.
In herself, she settled the differences between the cultural and religious values of the environment she grew up in and the tradition of the royal family Nemanjić she testified in Serbia, which she accepted with full respect. Her catholic origins and the orthodox environment in which she found herself were to her simply two sides of the same religion.
In the latter stage of her life, queen Jelena decided to deeply commit to the orthodox faith, hence she became a monk in the church Sveti Nikola, in Skadar. Her spiritual name became Jelisaveta. Her body was buried in the monastery Gradac, in February 1314. In order to pay the tribute to her for all her achievements, Helena of Anjou, the queen, ruler and nun was canonised only three years after her death, and our church celebrates 12th November, the day of St. Queen Helen of Anjou and her sons, Dragutin and Milutin.