Lazar, Prince of Serbia

Lazar Hrebeljanović rose to rule the Serbian lands in the fractured decades after the end of the Nemanjić dynasty, working to unite the nobility, reconcile the Serbian Church with the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and build churches, including his foundation of Ravanica monastery. As the Ottoman advance pressed into the Balkans, Lazar gathered the Christian host and met the army of Sultan Murad I at Kosovo Field on June 15, 1389. According to the cherished tradition of the Serbian people, on the eve of battle Lazar was offered the choice between an earthly and a heavenly kingdom, and chose the heavenly. Both rulers perished; Lazar was captured and beheaded. The Serbian Church glorified him as a great martyr, his incorrupt relics rest at Ravanica, and Vidovdan, the day of Kosovo, became the defining commemoration of Serbian faith and identity.