Rule of Moravian Serbia
Following the catastrophic Serbian defeat at the Battle of Marica in 1371, in which the Mrnjavcevic brothers were killed and the Nemanjic dynasty came to an end, Lazar gradually rose from the rank of a court official (stavilac) to become the dominant regional lord. He secured his position by defeating his chief rival, Nikola Altomanovic, in 1373.
By 1379 Lazar governed the territory known as Moravian Serbia, comprising the basins of the three Morava rivers and including the towns of Krusevac, Nis, and Novo Brdo. He adopted the title of autocrator and presented himself as heir to the Nemanjic heritage, building an economically prosperous and militarily organized state. Alongside his political consolidation he rebuilt Serbian ecclesiastical institutions, securing the reconciliation of the Serbian Church with Constantinople in 1375 and endowing monasteries, including the restoration of Hilandar and Gornjak and the construction of Ravanica and the Lazarica church at Krusevac.
The Battle of Kosovo
On June 15, 1389, Lazar met the army of Ottoman Sultan Murad I at Kosovo Polje, the Field of Blackbirds, near Pristina. The engagement was severe and costly to both sides; Lazar fell in the fighting, and Sultan Murad was also killed, assassinated by the Serbian nobleman Milos Obilic. The battle entered Serbian memory as a defining national event.
After the battle, Lazar's widow Milica accepted Ottoman suzerainty in 1390 to protect their minor son Stefan Lazarevic and preserve the Serbian state. Serbian epic and hagiographic tradition later recast Lazar as the figure offered, on the eve of battle, a choice between an earthly and a heavenly kingdom; by tradition he chose the kingdom of heaven, a motif that became central to the Kosovo theme in Serbian religious and national consciousness.
Veneration
Shortly after 1389 the Serbian Church recognized Lazar as a martyr and saint, the first layperson to be so honored in medieval Serbia. Between 1389 and 1420 some ten hagiographic works were composed in his honor, among them the celebrated Encomium of Prince Lazar by the nun Jefimija. These writings interpreted his death as a Christian martyrdom and offered consolation to Serbs facing Ottoman conquest. His feast is kept on June 15 (June 28 on the new calendar), the day known as Vidovdan.
Relics & Shrines
Lazar was first buried in the Church of the Ascension in Pristina, and his relics were transferred to the Ravanica Monastery in 1390-1391. During the upheavals of the Great Turkish War in the 1690s, the Ravanica monks carried the relics northward to Szentendre near Budapest and then to the Vrdnik-Ravanica Monastery (Sisatovac region) on Mount Fruska Gora in 1697.
In 1941 the relics were moved to Besenovo Monastery and in 1942 to the Cathedral Church in Belgrade for safekeeping during the Second World War. In 1989, on the six-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, they were returned to the Ravanica Monastery, where they remain.
