Mother of Saint Vasilije of Ostrog
Her whole place in the Church's memory rests on her motherhood. Saint Vasilije of Ostrog — born Stojan, on 28 December 1610, in the village of Mrkonjići at the Popovo field in the Ljubinje nahija of Herzegovina — was raised in that Ottoman-ruled countryside by parents named Petar and Ana Jovanović before he entered monastic life and became in time the bishop whose relics at Ostrog draw pilgrims from across the Balkans and beyond.
What the accounts of Vasilije's childhood preserve of the household is slight and is transmitted as legend rather than record: that the boy was diligent and obedient, that he spent his early years tending cattle on the Herzegovinian hills and mountain slopes, and that he inherited his graciousness and benevolence from his parents. The anchor of the Serbian Church's own commemoration puts the matter more directly — that she bore and raised her son at Mrkonjići and gave him young to the service of God.
Glorification
The regular Assembly of Bishops (Sabor) of the Serbian Orthodox Church met from 13 to 17 May 2025 at the Church of Saint Sava in Voždovac, Belgrade. Among its decisions, the Sabor resolved to canonize a number of hierarchs, priests, monastics and lay believers on the basis of reports concerning their lives and spiritual struggles, adding them to the Church's calendar as intercessors. Blessed Ana of Mrkonjići was glorified in that act, her feast appointed for 30 April, observed on 13 May of the civil calendar.
The first annual liturgical commemoration after the canonization was kept on 13 May 2026 at Mrkonjići in Herzegovina, where the Divine Liturgy was served beside her holy relics. An icon procession was held, with sisters from the monasteries of Žiča and Ždrebaonik taking part, and the monastery residence was blessed after the celebration. In his homily Archbishop Maksim observed that five centuries had passed since her lifetime.
Relics & Shrines
Her relics are enshrined at Mrkonjići, in the church at the village of her son's birth, in the Diocese of Zahumlje and Herzegovina. The Liturgy is served there for her each Saturday, and the Liturgy of her feast in May 2026 was celebrated beside the relics themselves. The site is that of Saint Vasilije's birthplace, so that mother and son are commemorated in the same place from which he set out.
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented: the record is administrative and genealogical rather than thaumaturgic. What is firmly attested is her name and her marriage to Petar Jovanović, her motherhood of Saint Vasilije of Ostrog, the presence of her relics at Mrkonjići and the weekly Liturgy served there, the synodal act of May 2025 that placed her in the calendar, and the commemoration of 13 May 2026 at which that act was first kept liturgically.
Traditional Accounts: no miracle, vision or wonder is ascribed to Ana herself in the sources that name her. What tradition carries is a characterization of the home rather than of any event — that Stojan was a diligent and obedient child who took his graciousness and benevolence from his parents — and this is related as legend surrounding her son's early life, not as documented history.
What the sources do not say
The gaps are worth stating plainly, since a glorification so recent invites the filling-in of a life. No source consulted gives her year of birth or of death, her parentage, her maiden name, or any children besides Vasilije. Archbishop Maksim's remark that five centuries have passed places her broadly in the sixteenth to seventeenth century; the fixed point in the chronology is her son's birth in 1610, which sets her adult life in the early seventeenth century in Ottoman Herzegovina. A maiden surname circulates in secondary Serbian-language press, but it is uncorroborated by any primary source and is not asserted here.
