Serbian Patriarch Porphyry led the Divine Liturgy on August 15 at the Monastery of Saint Stephen the First Deacon in Slanči, east of Belgrade, according to the Serbian Orthodox Church website. In his homily, the patriarch urged believers not to adjust Christianity to shifting public views, but instead to pursue inner spiritual transformation.

“The Church is outside time, because the Lord is eternal and beyond time; therefore He is ‘modern,’ and the Church with Him—His Body—is modern in every age,” Patriarch Porphyry said.

He emphasized that Christian faith should be reflected above all in a person’s life: through love of God and neighbor, the ability to forgive, and the refusal to nurture hatred. Speaking about Saint Stephen, the patriarch recalled that the first Christian martyr prayed for those who stoned him.

“To injustice he did not respond with revenge, and to hatred he responded with love and prayer,” Porphyry said.

The patriarch also commented on the sharpness of contemporary public debate, calling on Christians to avoid hatred toward those who disagree with them. In his view, simply attending church and participating in religious life does not automatically make someone better unless those practices shape how the person treats others.

The Monastery of Slanči is an ancient Orthodox community in the settlement of the same name. Its exact founding date is unknown. One tradition says it was established in the early 13th century by Saint Sava, while another attributes its founding to King Stefan Dragutin in the late 13th century.

The monastery gained particular importance in the 15th century, when Belgrade became the capital of the Serbian Despotate. During the reigns of Despots Stefan Lazarević and Đurađ Branković, the monastery flourished, receiving its dedication to Saint Stephen the First Deacon and First Martyr, and—according to tradition—a particle of his relics. For that reason, the monastery is known among locals as the “Great Monastery.”

After the fall of the Serbian Despotate in the late 15th century, the monastery was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt. In 1833, the old monastery was dismantled and its building materials were used to construct churches in nearby villages.

The monastery’s renewal began in the 20th century. In 1961, at the initiative of Patriarch German of Serbia, restoration work began, and the church was completed in 1971. Today, Slanči is an active male monastery, and it is also associated with training monks for the Serbian monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos.