TE17 Mysterious Montenegro

Milovan Radojević

And while that agonizing suspense endured in Bar, Dioclea’s Great PrinceMihailo passed away. Hewent without a singleword, easily, without a moan or murmur. And we, who bore an ember of hope in our hearts for as long as his strugglewith death lasted, felt a fear stronger than sorrow, the fear of being left at the mercy of a galewithout a helmsman, as if he had betrayed us by departing in a crucial moment without leaving a successor. A wail and a dirge went up, and we laid Mihailo beneath a slab of the Church of St. George, with a ceremony that has been practiced at the funerals of kings from time immemorial. His wish remained unfulfilled that he be laid to rest alongside the glorious Voislavić rulers in the Church of the Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus. When the abbey was attacked by the Rascians, 13 they rode up to the altars on horses. And Abbot Isaac died, blessed be his soul, after holding out the cross at the blasphemers and violators, and barring the passage of theirhorses through theportal withhis body. ArchbishopGregory was shaken by Mihailo’s death because it was the last straw amid so much worry and pain, in the state of war, which prevented him from going to Pope Clement and seeking rescindment of the bull that he and the Pope before him had drafted and promulgated upon the persistent solicitation of Tribun, Antistes of Ragusa. In his sermon as the great prince lay in state, the archbishop said: “Thus passes the last Voislavić, grandson of King Vladimir and nephew of great King Bodin, and no one remains of that glorious family, and the people and the Dioclean Church are left without a protector.” 13 . Forces from the Serbian principality of Raška, whose capital was the city of Ras (today southwestern Serbia.

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