There are, however, references to and traces of his cult even before the official entry of the name of Saint Despot Stefan into the diptychs of the Saints of the Serbian Orthodox Church, both in the history of Serbian Orthodox piety and in the history of Orthodoxy in other Slavic lands, and even more widely.
Thus the Karlovci Genealogy, composed in the 16th century, says that Despot Stefan lived piously and in a manner pleasing to God, and built on the river Resava the renowned monastery of the Holy Trinity, which is the place where his relics were laid [SRL 40: 29–31].
Despot Stefan is called a saint in the text known under the title The Wisdom and Prophecy of Saint Stefan Lazarević; according to the research of Leontije Pavlović (1915–1997), this text originates from the 15th or 16th century (one version of this text was published by Đuro Daničić in 1872). According to the research of Đorđe Sp. Radojičić (1905–1970), Konstantin Musaki in the 16th century produced a translation from Serbian into Italian of a genealogy in which it is said that Despot Stefan Lazarević is regarded as a saint.
The Serbian monks Damjan and Pavle, in the petition which they wrote and sent to the Roman Pope Clement VIII (1536– 1605) in 1597, listing the holy things and the saints of the Serbian lands, mention among others the holy body of Despot Stefan, which is located in the church of the monastery of Resava [MDP 57 (93: 24а)].