Unofficial Cults of Women in the Serbian Orthodox Church. The Example of the Nun Stefanida of Skadar, Bitola and Dečani

The paper is focused on a corpus of hymnographic texts dedicated to nun Stefanida/Stevka as an example of a literary work focused on the promotion of a newly revealed saint by the Serbian Orthodox Church, whose role is to elevate the spiritual essence of a society that underwent secularization during the socialist era, while revisiting the core principles of this society’s ideological resilience. By using means of expression, such as modern language (vernacular), fragments of Stevka’s letters, and Serbian cultural and religious topoi, the authors of the hymnographic texts made them more accessible to the contemporary believer. Additionally, the hymnographic texts symbolically represent the spiritual landscape of both past and contemporary Serbia, adding to a more comprehensive narrative about the historical cohesion of the Serbian Orthodox Church.