Slava: A Serbian Family Tradition to Celebrate one's Patron Saint

"Gde je Slava, tu je Srbin" ("Where there is a Slava, there is a Serb")

- A saying from the 1870s (from Ethnologia Balkanica p. 70, via Wikipedia)

Slava is a Serbian Orthodox tradition in which Serbs celebrate their family's patron saint as a family. Slava is uniquely Serbian and is not celebrated by the other national Orthodox churches.

There are a few formal aspects of the tradition, but the main point of the tradition is to spend time with family and close friends.  In 2014, UNESCO actually added Slava to their "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity" list.  It is the only tradition from Serbia on the list.  They have some resources for learning about Slava on the UNESCO website.  There are great pictures and an 8-minute video, they also have a copy of the original application to make Slava part of the UNESCO list.  In addition to the above sources, there are a few pictures of the Slava bread on the Serbian museum of Bread website.   

A traditional Slava celebration includes a few key elements...

• Slava bread
• A candle that is lit
• Some traditional foods at the feast
• And lots of wine

As noted in a previous post, the Klaich family's patron saint is Saint Luke. The day for the Klaich family to celebrate Slava is October 31st.  We might try to bake some Slava bread in order to celebrate it on a minor scale this year.  Fortunately there are lots of recipes for it online.  Unfortunately I haven't tried any of them so I have no idea which one to suggest.  (UPDATE 2016: Here's a post on the recipe I ended up using successfully)

Finally, I  don't know at what point this tradition stopped being observed in our family.  As far as I know it was not observed by my grandmother.  However, I never specifically asked.   If I learn any differently, I'll update this post later.