At the same time, Emperor Isaac II Angelos launched a punitive expedition against the Serbs, and Nemanja was defeated in the battle of South Morava.

The new Pope Innocent III, who in a letter in 1198 called on the entire West to liberate the Holy Land, was not satisfied with the fact that the Serbs were subordinated to the Patriarch of Constantinople, but wanted to return them to Rome through Vukan.

In 1198, the Hungarian dux Andrew conquered Hum (Hercegovina) of grand zoupan Stefan and rebelled against brother king Emeric but did not gain legitimacy from Rome.

Vukan and the Hungarian king Emeric (1196–1204) make an alliance against Stefan, after which a civil war breaks out in Serbia.

Around 1200, Stefan expelled his wife Eudokia, a daughter of Alexios III Angelos, who found refuge with Vukan in Zeta.

Emeric saw Stefan's move as an open attack on his crown, because in Hungary it was traditionally believed that only it in the region could have primacy with the Roman pope.

Stefan uses this situation and in the counter-offensive, with the help of Prince Kaloyan, he returns to the throne in Ras in 1204, while Vukan retreats to Zeta.

The remaining Byzantine factions also formed their own successor states on the fringes of the empire, at Niceae and Trebizond in Asia Minor, and at Epiros in west Balkan.

Of the newly created Greek states, two gained some stability and survived through this period: Niceae under the Laskaris dynasty, which soon became an empire (1208), and Epiros, which took considerably to rise to same status (1224–27).

Strez, the first cousin or brother of Boril, took refuge in Serbia, and was warmly welcomed at the court of Stefan II.

[8] At the same time, Boril was unable to take military action against Strez and his Serbian patron, as he had suffered a major defeat at the hands of the Latins at Plovdiv.

[11] Đorđe promised Venice military aid in case of a revolt by another theoretical Venetian vassal, Dhimitër Progoni, the Prince of Albania and Lord of Kruja.

[13][12] After Dhimitër's death, the lands are left to Komnena,[14] who soon married Greek-Albanian Gregorios Kamonas, who took power of Kruja,[15] strengthening relations with Serbia, which had after a Serbian assault on Scutari been weakened.

The contradiction led some Serbian historians to conclude that Stefan underwent two coronations, first by the legate and in 1219 by Sava, but modern scholars tend to agree that only the former took place.

[21][unreliable source] Stefan was married, around 1186, to Eudokia Angelina, the youngest daughter of Alexius Angelus and Euphrosyne Doukaina Kamaterina.

According to the Greek historian Nicetas Choniates, Stefan and Eudocia quarreled and separated, accusing one another of adultery, after June 1198.

Local tradition, related to the Reževići Monastery claims that it was king Stefan who built (in 1223 or 1226) the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God (Serbian: Црква Успења Пресвете Богородице).