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although both became Saints for their people and the latter suffered a mar-tyr’s death (22.5.1016), Peter having been honoured with a Medieval Bulga-rian Akolouthia and John with a South Slavic Life. Only in the late 17.c. a Greek Akolouthia and a long and a short Life were written for John on the basis of Slavic sources and legends, and all three were published many times in the 18.—19. cc. The recognition of John’s sanctity by G. Cedrenus-J. Scy-litzes (II, 463) was not sufficient for the Byzantine hagiographers to stimu-late their interest in him (Dujcev, pp. 216—219). It is curious that no interest was taken in Peter either, although he was very close to Byzantine values. As for the Ottoman period Greek hagiography for John Vladimir, it may be explained by the feelings of solidarity and common destiny of Bałkan peo-ples under a heavy yoke, which appears en relief in Nicodemos Hagioreites' Neon Martyrologion (1794).

25.    Still two Greek Lives and an Encomion were devoted to two other Slavic political personalities who became saints: the Serbian Prince Stephan Nemanija — Monk Symeon, and his son Savas, the first Archbishop of Serbia ^ 1219—1235). The reasons for this differentiation of Byzantine hagio-graphic sensitivity are not to be explored here but just noted. Its scope rea-ched Abbot Antonios (d. 1073), founder of the Kievo-pećerskaja Lavra: he was honoured with a Greek Vita much later. But for the Athonite monks who died for their opposition to Michael VIII’s Unionist policy, among them Bulgarians, first a Slav and later on two Greek Accounts were written. This should ne correlated with the strong hostility of the Church of Tirnovo against Michael’s policy amounting with betrayal of Orthodoxy in Bulgarian eyes. Again in the 14.c. the Byzantine author Michael Balsamon composed a Greek Homily for the Russian Neomartyrs of Vilna in 1347, Antonios, Johannes and Eustathios (Dujcev, pp. 220—221). We should recall here that there was a rich Caucasian hagiography of a Byzantine flarour, an extension of the original or derived from Oriental Urąuellen, e.g.: P. Peeters, ’S. Romain le Nćomartyr (-j- 1 mai 780) d'apres un document georgien, AnBoll, XXX, 1911, pp. 393—427; idem, ‘S. Hilarion dTberie', ibid, XXXII, 1913, pp. 236.

26.    A Bałkan dimension of Byzantine hagiography can be traced back to the early Byzantine centuries; the connections of St. Demetrios of Thessa-lonica and of St. Anastasia the Martyr with Sirmium seem to imply a shad-owy existence for both within a wide Bałkan context. C. Mango believes that, “when, in 442—3, the Capital of the prefecture of Illyricum moved /from Sirmium/ to Thessalonica so as to be protected from the attachs of the Huns, the cult of Demetrius also migrated. Shortly thereafter a magnifi-cent basilica was built in his honour ... The absence of relics — in the se-venth century they still did not exist — was gradually forgotten or glossed over... a tomb was madę, by means of a fraudulent arrangement of conceal-ed pipes, to emit a holy oil, so that Demetrius shared with Nicholas the en-viable epithet of Myrobletes. Transformed into a military saint (he was ori-ginally a deacon), a youthful figurę ... he repeatedly ‘defended' his city against barbarian attack” (Mango, Byzantium, 1980, p. 157). In one of the miracles of the Saint, Leontios the prefect of the Illyrians receives from the Saint the reliąuary and arrives at Sirmium, where he deposes the relics in the church which he builds for him, near that of the Martyr Anastasia (P. Lemerle, Les plus anciens Recueils des Miracles de Saint Demetrius ..., II,