Elena-Evgenia, wife of Ivan Asen I


Elena was the second wife of tsar Ivan Asen I of Bulgaria. She was the mother of tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria.

Biography

Her antecedents are unknown. She is sometimes alleged to be a daughter of Stefan Nemanja of Serbia, but this relationship is questionable and would have caused various canonical impediments to marriages between their descendants. Elena married Ivan Asen I in 1183 at the age of thirteen.
By her marriage to Ivan Asen I, Elena had at least two sons:
  1. Ivan Asen II, emperor of Bulgaria 1218–1241
  2. Alexander, sebastokrator, who died after 1232; Alexander had a son named Kaliman Asen II, emperor of Bulgaria in 1256
After the assassination of Ivan Asen I in 1196, Elena retired to a convent under the monastic name Evgenia. Her memory is honored in the Synodic of Bulgarian Church: