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Eight Centuries of Serbian Hilandar Monastery

Eight centuries ago, Byzantium Emperor Aleksei III gave a hrisovulja (an act or declaration) which grants Monastery Hilandar and the region around the monastery to be an "eternal present to the Serbs".  He gave the act to St. Sava and his father St. Simeon (Stevan Nemanja).  From this moment, Hilandar Monastery was for centuries to come, home to Serbs, Serbian religion and culture.

Many Serbian kings contributed to the enlargement and extension of the Hilandar.  The Monastery Hilandar is located at the Aegean Sea in Greece, in the peninsula Mont. Athos.  Through the past eight centuries, the Hilandar Monastery was the inspiration and enlightenment for the Serbian people.

Hilandar reaches its blooming during the period of the Nemanjiches.  The number of monks was steadily increasing.  On the Holy Mount, in those sacred times, thousand of monks were gathering and transmitting their knowledge, living heroic lives.  Almost all our writers from the Middle Ages from St. Sava to Constantine the Philosopher, came out of the Hilandar school.

Many Serbian rulers from the Middle Ages carved their souls into the holy Hilandar walls.  The King Milutin built the new cathedral, around 1300, on the spot of an old one, decorating it with frescoes, and dedicating it to the Presentation of the Holy Virgin.  Milutin's example followed by czar Dusan, by his building and fortifying of the monastery.  In the 14th century, the holiest of all Serbians dukes - Lazar, has built another vestibule in front of the cathedral.  During the past centuries, twelve more of this small churches - chapels were built.  The lodging shelters were built and reconstructed, the dining room was renewed, water-tanks were rebuilt, the kitchen as well, and the entrance into the monastery. 

Hilandar acquired its today's shape at the beginning of the 19th century.  Hilandar's old garments are today being redecorated with fast speed.

 

A Never-Ending Prayer

"The Holy Mount is an empire with no crown, a state with no army, a country with no women, a fortune with no money, wisdom with no books, a kitchen with no meat, a never-eating prayer, a never-ending link with the heavens, on Ode to never-tiring Christ, death with no mourning."

Nikolai Velimirovich, the Episcope











Iconostasis of the main church, executed in c. 1774. It forms an integral part of the church interior, together with the richly carved furniture. The interior reflects western influences which reached Athos during the 17th and 18th centuries.
 


The miracle-working icon of the Virgin Troyeruchitsa was cherished on the courts of all the rulers of the Nemanyich dynasty. In the late 14th century it was transferred from the court of the Tzar Dushan the Mighty to the monastery Studenica. In the early 15th century, Studenica became the target of the Turkish invaders. Advised that the Turks were  approaching the monastery, the monks quickly took out all of the valuable objects. They tied the icon of the Virgin Troyerichitsa to the pack-saddle of a donkey, and let it go wherever the Virgin led him. The donkey passed through Serbia and Macedonia, to arrive to Mount Athos. It stopped in the vicinity of Chilandar. Seeing the donkey and understanding what was going on, the monks from the monastery hurried to  meet it. When they took the icon off the donkey, the animal dropped dead.
At the end of the 15th century, Chilandar had a problem regarding election of the new abbot. Numerous monks of Serbian, Russian, Greek and Bulgarian origin could not come to a decision. Then, during an evening service, the voice of the Holy Virgin was clearly heard coming from the icon, saying that she was their abbess. The next morning, during the morning service, the icon was found on the abbatial throne.
Thinking that it was a trick, the monks returned it to the altar. But the same thing repeated the next day. The monks understood then that they should not continue with the election or move the icon from the abbatial throne. Thus the Virgin Troyeruchitsa became the abbess and patron of Chilandar. In the year 1905, at the request of the Headquarters of the Russian Tzar Army, then at war with Japan, a copy of the icon Troyeruchitsa was made and sent to the battlefield, to help the Orthodox Russian army. The Russians indeed started to win the battles. After the peace was signed between the two empires, the copy of the icon was returned to Chilandar.
In the 90s of the 20th century, the magnificent copy of the Virgin Troyerchitsa arrived to Serbia. It is displayed in the Temple of St. Sava, on the Vrachar plateau, on a special proskynetarion in the nave, next to the abbatial throne. There is an ever-burning big sanctuary lamp in front of the icon, the oil of which has already healed many a sick person. The icon of the Virgin Troyeruchitsa is the first Athonite relic which has been taken out of the Holy Mountain, against the canonical rules. In 1993 it was displayed in the church of St. Demetrios in Salonika, and was visited by more than a million of believers. It performed another of its many miracles there, giving sight to a 33-year-old man who had been blind ever since his birth.
 

THE MIRACLE-WORKING ICON, THE VIRGIN NOT-BURNING-IN-FIRE
The icon of the Virgin Not-Burning-in-Fire remained, as its name suggests, untouched in a great fire. The premises where she stood were burnt to the ground. The sooty icon was taken out of the ashes and put into the altar area of the Chilandar katholikon, where it still stands.

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Visoki Decani Monastery is situated in the western part of the UN administered Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia. It was built between 1327 and 1335 by the Serbian medieval king St. Stephen of Decani and was dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord. The monastery is settled in the picturesque valley of the Bistrica river surrounded by the mountains and forests of the Prokletije mountain range It is the largest and best preserved medieval monastery in Serbia. During its turbulent history the Monastery was an important spiritual centre with developed artistic and intellectual activities. Although the monastery buildings suffered damage from the Turkish occupation, the church has been completely preserved with beautiful 14th century fresco paintings. Today a young brotherhood of 30 brethren lives in the monastery continuing the centuries old tradition of the past. The brotherhood has developed various activities: wood carving, icon painting, book publishing and is also active in the missionary work. The beautiful monastic services are served according to the typicon of Mount Athos.





The Monks during the holy service in the church



Concelebration with the Bishop



Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro during the Holy Liturgy



The first morning rays during the holy service



Sunday Liturgy with the children from Velika Hoca, Oct 2001



Lighting the chandelier



Early morning liturgy

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Monastery Studenica, 12th century

 The monastery Studenica, dedicated to the Presentation of the Holy Virgin, is the mother-church of all Serbian temples. It was constructed over a quite long period. The first stage works were completed by the spring of 1196, when Stefan Nemanja abandoned his throne and settled in the monastery's foundation. When he later left for Hilandar, his son and successor Stefan took over the care of Studenica. Nemanja died in Hilandar in 1299. Nemanja's third son Sava, after reconciling his brothers Stefan and Vukan, moved Stefan's relics to Studenica. Under guardianship of Sava, Studenica became the political, cultural and spiritual center of medieval Serbia. Among his other endeavors, Sava composed a Typik, the rule-book where he described St. Simon's life, leaving evidence of the spiritual and monastic life of his time.
Studenica enjoyed continual care by the members of the Nemanjic dynasty. King Radoslav added to the church a splendid narthex in 1235. King Milutin built a small but lovely church dedicated to saints Joachim and Anna.

Since the fall of the last of the medieval Serbian states in 1459, the Turks often assaulted the monastery. The first of the significant restorations of the damage took place in 1569, when the frescoes in the Church of the Presentation were repainted. In the early seventeenth century, an earthquake and a fire befell the monastery, and historical documents and a significant part of the artistic heritage were destroyed and lost forever.

The Virgin's Church is a domed single-nave basilica. At its eastern end there is a three-sided apse, while an extended narthex faces west; there are also vestibules on the north and the south. In the 1230s, a large exonarthex was added. The facades were built with slabs of white marble; inside, the church is revetted with tufa blocks. Externally, the Church harmoniously reconciles two architectural styles, the Romanesque and the Byzantine. The blending of these two styles eventually produced a particular style of architecture known as the Raska School.

The artistic achievements of the sculpture of Studentica culminate in four portals, primarily the west one, inside between the narthex and the exonarthex. On the north wall under the dome, there is a window made of many square panes with medallions carved on a leaden plaque which represent eight fantastic animals - the symbols of the Virgin's virtues. There are also two rosettes denoting the Divine Eye. The masons came to Studenica most probably from the Adriatic region, perhaps from Kotor, where Nemanja used to have a palace. They left an insciption in Serbian lettering on the tympanum of the west portal.

The church was painted in the first decade of the thirteenth century. The original frescoes have been partly preserved in the altar area, under the dome, on the west wall, and in the lower registers of the nave. The most splendid representation is that of the Crucifixion, painted on blue background in 1209, one of the paramount achievements in Serbian art. On the south wall there is the "founders' composition" which shows the Virgin taking Nemanja-Simon with the church model to Jesus Christ as the Magistrate Impartial.

The narthex was painted in 1569. Those frescoes include an exquisite representation of the Last Judgment in the upper registers, and the portrait of Nemanja's wife Ana as the nun Anastasija.

The earliest fresco painting in Studenica marks the supreme achievement of Byzantine art in the region. The frescoes in Radoslav's narthex and the pareclesions originate from the 1230s and display a close relation to the painting style of the main church. The north chapel, dedicated to St. Nicholas, contains a composition of the Hetimasia and a cycle dealing with the life of St. Nicholas. In the south chapel one finds the portraits of Nemanja, Stefan the First Crowned and King Radoslav with his wife Ana. On the north wall of the narthex, three dignitaries of the Serbian church are portrayed - the archbishops Sava, Arsenije and Sava II (Radoslav's brother).

Northward from the Studenica refectory is the eighteenth century monastic residence, now housing a museum and displaying a number of the precious exhibits from the Studenica treasury. However, the frequent wars and plunders have considerably reduced the richest depository of Serbian spiritual life and culture in general.

Northwest of the Church of the Virgin there is the church of saints Joachim and Ann, known after its founder King Milutin as the King's Church. The church was constructed in 1314, in the form of a compressed cross, with the exterior structure of an octagonal dome. It is built of stone and tufa, with plastered facades. Inside this small church are frescoes of significant value, which date from the second half of the fourteenth century, painted by King Milutin's favorite artists.

The complex of the Studenica monastery includes the Church of St. Nicholas, a small single-nave church frescoed inside with works from the twelfth or possibly early thirteenth centuries. Between the Church of St. Nicholas and the King's Church are the foundations of the church dedicated to St. John the Baptist. West of the Virgin's Church, there is an old refectory made of rubble, built during the time of Archbishop Sava. Finally, on the western side of the monastery complex there is a bell tower, erected in the thirteenth century. There used to be a chapel inside; now, only fragments of frescoes can be seen there. Remains of fresco painting have also been numbered on the external part of the narthex, splendidly representing the Nemanjic dynasty genealogy. They obviously relate to the frescoes from the Virgin's Church which date back to 1208-9.

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Mileševa Monastery
 
About 6 km outside of Prijepolje is the famous Mileševa Monastery, located in the south-western part of Serbia. In front of one of the buildings was a large Serbian Orthodox flag, seemingly making a political/religious statement. Around a portion of the perimeter were stone ruins of a wall and perhaps some Turkish small buildings. King Vladislav founded the monastery around 1234. Two years later, it received the body of St. Sava, elevating its position of importance to second amongst Serbian monasteries. In the 1500’s, the monastery operated a printing shop, spreading liturgical books throughout Serbia and neighboring areas. In retaliation for a Serbian uprising against the Turks in 1688, the monastery was burned and left in ruins. The present-day building dates back to 1863. We were not able to enter the monastery building. The church of the Holy Ascension was erected in 1234/5 in the style of the Raška School.

The inside of the church was definitely the highlight of the visit. A nun lit candles on top of coffin over the gravesite of St. Sava. On the opposite wall was the coffin of a recently canonized individual. In the domes and around other places, frescoes had large pieces missing. The frescoes of King Vladislav and St. Sava were painted during their lifetimes and are seen as some of the best (and accurate) portraits of the 13th century. In addition to the emphasis on realism, the frescoes portray the psychological characterizations of the individuals. As in most frescoes, the founder (in this case Vladislav) is depicted holding a small model of the church. Many of the figures’ eyes had been gouged or obliterated by the Turks. I heard that these may be soon restored. Frescoes depicting the Last Judgment were heavily damaged during WWII when the church was used as a stable. Scenes of the Passion Week covered large portions of the walls. The church’s most famous fresco is the White Angel, now regarded as a symbol of Serbia and recently adopted as an emblem for the United Nations. Around the angel are other portions of the Easter story and Resurrection. Remnants of a fresco once covering the scene leads one to speculate that angel with its enigmatic smile might not be with us today if it were not for such preservation.





Quarters



Right wall, including the White Angel fresco



White Angel Fresco (Resurrection scene)



The remains of the St. King Vladislav, the founder of the Monastery



View of church and surroundings



Mileseva Tower

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Gracanica Monastery



Gracanica Monastery one of King Milutin's last monumental endowments. It is situated in the village of Gracanica, 5 km. from Pristina, the administrative centre of Kosovo and Metohija region. The monastery is in the close vicinity of Lipljan, the ancient Roman town of Ulpiana, and the old residence of bishops. Gracanica was constructed on the ruins of an older 13th-century church of the Theotokos, which was built on the ruins of a 6th-century early Christian three-naved basilica.

In the charter inscribed on the south wall of the chapel, King Milutin says: "I saw the devastation and fall of the church of the Holy Theotokos of Gracanica, Bishopric of Lipljan, I had it built from the foundation stone, I had it inscribed and decorated from the inside and from the outside." All this happened in the year 6830, that is, in 1321 since the birth of Christ. Only the church remains from the original monastery complex. The vestibule with the dome was additionally built several decades later. This vestibule was ruined during Turkish assaults in 1379-1383, when the dome was lost in fire, as well as a rich collection of manuscripts. The vestibule is believed to have been restored in 1383 by Bishop Simeon of Gracanica.

The monastery was damaged during the battle of Kosovo 1389, and when Novo Brdo was conquered in 1455, Metropolitan Benedict Crepovic left Gracanica and was granted use of the monastery Vracevsnica by Despot Djuradj Brankovic. Better times for the monastery started during the incumbency of Metropolitan Nikanor (1528-1555), when a printing house, supervised by master-printer Dimitrije, was operating in Gracanica for a while. At that time, several icons were painted on the iconostasis, and Metropolitan Nikanor had the external vestibule painted and provided some liturgical books and other liturgical objects for the monastery. The royal door was ordered in 1564 by Metropolitan Dionisius, whose death is pictured on a fresco painting in the vestibule. Thanks to Patriarch Macarius Sokolovic. Gracanica monastery was considerably reconstructed: all the openings in the external vestibule were filled, and a new layer of frescoes was completed on September 3, 1570. Patriarch Paisius had the church covered with lead, and a cross with the crucifixion of Christ was manufactured in the 17th century, during the Great Migration of the Serbs under the patriarch Arsenije III Carnojevic. Devastation of the monastery was repeated in the middle of the 18th century. Somewhat later, Jegen-pasha had the lead roof and the floor tiles removed and taken to Pristina. In 1800, this tyrant, having repented for his crime, returned the lead roof and presented the monastery with a plot of land. Later, due to great pressure from the Turkish occupators, the monastery was deserted by monks and the church served as a parish church.


The architectural composition of Gracanica represents the peak of Serbian architecture in the spirit of Byzantine tradition. Unfortunately the rich Gracanica treasury was lost in fires between 1379 and 1383. The present treasury stores a number of valuable icons from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as well as several significant manuscripts and liturgical objects.

After the Second World War it was renewed by nuns and has been serving as a convent since. Today there are 24 sisters in the monastery who are active in icon painting, agriculture, sewing and other monastic obediences.

After the war in Kosovo 1999 Bishop of Raska and Prizren Kyr Artemije transferred his official seat to this Monastery from Prizren and since then the monastery has become not only the most important spiritual but also the national and political center of the Serbian people in the Province. Bishop Artemije and the Serb National Council make everyday efforts to preserve the Serbian people in Kosovo.





Nuns chanting - a night service at Gracanica Monastery



Gracanica Monastery - a nun in prayer



Gracanica Monastery church from the entrance gate



Bishop Artemije in Gracanica Monastery, March 2002



Liturgy in Gracanica monastery

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