Serbian Orthodox Church Serbians were converted to Christianity not long after their arrival in the Balkans, before the Great Schism split the Christian Church into rival Latin-speaking (Roman Catholic) and Greek-speaking Eastern Orthodox Churches. During the early Middle Ages, the religious allegiance of the Serbs was divided between the two churches. The various Serbian principalities were united ecclesiastically in the early 13th century by Saint Sava, the son of the Serbian ruler and founder of the Serbian medieval state Stefan Nemanja and brother of Stefan Prvovencani, the first Serbian king. Sava persuaded the Byzantine Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople to establish the Church in Serbia as an autocephalous body, with Sava himself as its archbishop, consecrated in 1219. The status of the Serbian Orthodox Church grew along with the growth in size and prestige of the medieval kingdom of Serbia. When King Stefan Dusan assumed the imperial title of tsar in 1346, the Archbishopric of Pec was correspondingly raised to the rank of Patriarchate. In the century that followed, the Serbian Church achieved its greatest power and prestige.

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