Anna subsequently known under the religious name

Religious Name

A religious name is a type of given name bestowed for a religious purpose, and which is generally used in religious contexts. Different types of religious names may be in use among the clergy of a religion, as well in some cases among the laity....

 Anisia (Анисия), was the first wife of Tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria

Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria

-Early rule:He was a son of Ivan Asen I of Bulgaria and Elena . Elena, who survived until after 1235, 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 various descendants...

 (r. 1218–1241) and empress consort of the Second Bulgarian Empire

Second Bulgarian Empire

The Second Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state which existed between 1185 and 1396 . A successor of the First Bulgarian Empire, it reached the peak of its power under Kaloyan and Ivan Asen II before gradually being conquered by the Ottomans in the late 14th-early 15th century...

 from 1218 to 1221. She was exiled to a monastery in the beginning of Ivan Asen's reign, after he arranged his marriage to Anna Maria of Hungary

Anna Maria of Hungary

Anna Maria of Hungary was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude of Merania. She was sister of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary....

. From his marriage to Anna, Ivan Asen had two children.

Biography

Ivan Asen's marriage to Anna dates to his exile in Rus'

Rus' (region)

Rus' is an ethno-cultural region in Eastern Europe inhabited by Eastern Slavs. Historically, it comprises the northern part of Ukraine, the north-western part of Russia, Belarus and some eastern parts of Poland and Slovakia.The name comes from Old East Slavic , and remains the same in modern...

, the period before his forceful accession to his ancestral throne of Bulgaria in 1218. In all likelihood, Anna was betrothed to Ivan Asen so that he could receive Rus' assistance in taking the throne. According to the account of Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 historian George Akropolites, Anna was a concubine rather than a legitimate wife of Ivan Asen. However, Bulgarian historian Ivan Bozhilov believes this to be a result of Akropolites' poor information.

Anna's actual time as empress was rather short-lived. Not long after taking the throne in 1218, Ivan Asen arranged his politically motivated marriage to Hungarian

Kingdom of Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary comprised present-day Hungary, Slovakia and Croatia , Transylvania , Carpatho Ruthenia , Vojvodina , Burgenland , and other smaller territories surrounding present-day Hungary's borders...

 princess Anna Maria

Anna Maria of Hungary

Anna Maria of Hungary was a daughter of King Andrew II of Hungary and Gertrude of Merania. She was sister of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary....

, daughter of King Andrew II

Andrew II of Hungary

Andrew II the Jerosolimitan was King of Hungary and Croatia . He was the younger son of King Béla III of Hungary, who invested him with the government of the Principality of Halych...

 (r. 1205–1235). Ivan Asen effectively demanded the marriage by prohibiting Andrew and his forces from passing through Bulgarian territory on their way back from the Fifth Crusade

Fifth Crusade

The Fifth Crusade was an attempt to reacquire Jerusalem and the rest of the Holy Land by first conquering the powerful Ayyubid state in Egypt....

. After the future marriage of Ivan Asen and Anna Maria was settled, his first wife Anna was retired to a monastery and became a nun under the name Anisia. In a later Bulgarian Orthodox

Bulgarian Orthodox Church

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church - Bulgarian Patriarchate is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church with some 6.5 million members in the Republic of Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2.0 million members in a number of European countries, the Americas and Australia...

 text, she was praised as an Orthodox empress of Bulgaria. Ivan Asen married Anna Maria three years later, in 1221, because the marriage required the personal approval of the Pope

Pope

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...

. As common with ex-consorts, Ivan Asen's first wife finished her life exiled to a monastery.

By her marriage to Ivan Asen, Anna gave birth to two daughters. The eldest, Maria Asanina Komnena, was wife of Manuel Komnenos Doukas

Manuel Komnenos Doukas

Manuel Komnenos Doukas , often inaccurately called Manuel Angelos , was ruler of Thessalonica from 1230 to 1237 and of Thessaly from 1239 until his death in c. 1241.-Life:Manuel was a legitimate son of the sebastokratōr John Doukas...

, ruler of Thessalonica from 1230 to 1237. Another daughter of Anna, tentatively known as Beloslava

Beloslava of Bulgaria

Beloslava was Bulgarian princess and Queen consort of Serbia . She was wife of King Stefan Vladislav I of Serbia.Beloslava was the daughter of tsar Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria and his first wife Anna , mentioned in the Synodik of the Bulgarian Church. Ivan Asen II and Anna had another daughter -...

, was married to Serbian king Stephen Vladislav I (r. 1234–1243).