Teodosije the Hilandarian (Serbian: Теодосије Хиландарац, Teodosije Hilandarac, Greek: Θεοδόσιος, eng. Theodosius; 1246-1328) was a Serbian Orthodox clergyman and one of the most important Serbian writers in the Middle Ages, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts named him one of the 100 most prominent Serbs.
Teodosije is one of the few medieval writers whose works we can find explicit poetic views. They coincide with known Horace's thinking about the function of literature, but the ways in which these attitudes are brought into the Serbian medieval times are very specific. Their roots in ancient Greece (Aristotle), which is elaborated on by Hellenistic writers, and through late antique and early Byzantine, and later Athonite, enters the width of Teodosije.
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He was born in around 1246. He was a monk of Hilandar (hence his epithet), the Serbian monastery of Mount Athos, and a priest of King Stephen Uroš III Dečanski (r. 1322-1331). He focused on expanding and strengthening the cult of St. Simeon the Myrrhflowing (Stefan Nemanja) (r. 1166–1196), and Saint Sava, who had created the main focues of the Serb ethnic and cultural identity.[1]
The Life of St. Sava was written in 1290-1292, with fellow Domentijan Hilandarac. He wrote several canons, liturgical, and other works dedicated to Saints Simeon and Sava, as well as the work on the Life of St. Peter of Korisha, which is viewed as the artistically most successful art of old Serbian literature. In the work, as in the Life of St. Sava, despite the strict form of biographies, it was written with a fluent and vivid style of storytelling. The narrative is sometimes dramatic, and always from the character's point of view. Because of such tendencies (as noted in the great writer of Orthodox tradition, Dostoevsky, who also drew the literary skills from hagiographic literature), this work has been called a "novel", and Theodosius the first Serbian novelist.
Teodosije's Life of St. Sava, is viewed as a successful composition, one of the first complex parts in old Serbian literature. Teodosije was also an innovator, one who tells the many times told story, and through new compositional structure of sentences and word processing, and refresh the story. In this way, the Serbian historical characters are taken from the literary monotony in which the writers of the past centuries had put them in, enlightening them from different angles.
The frequent verbal sensibility shows the talent of Teodosije.