Monastery Sretenje is located at a fascinating place and the unusual legend about how this shrine came be will leave you speechless (VIDEO)

The monastery Sretenje is located on a plateau below the peak of Ovcar, at the source of the Korona stream, elevated in the smaller valley below the top of the western side of the Ovcar Mountain, about 800 meters above sea level. It is not reliably established when was this monastery was. Judging by some architectural solutions of an old monastery church, a preserved baptistery, and a rosette, it is presumed that it existed in the 16th century.

The sweetest village in Serbia is finally going under UNESCO protection: Every resident is doing a single craft

Recommended

The first written mention of this monastery is saved in one manuscript gospel from 1571. The temple was painted in 1844 at the time of Uzice bishop Nicifor Maksimovic and the prince Aleksandar Karadjordjevic. The monastery Patron saint is Sretenje (Presentation of Jesus at the Temple), 15th February. According to the tradition, the crown was thrown from the top of Ovcara mountain and the church was built where it landed.

During the Great Migrations of the Serbs under Arsenije Carnojevic, the Monastery was devastated and it was abandoned for a long time. The first restoration of the monastery was done by the priest Nikifor in 1818 and he was buried there in 1853, as a great restorer and the patron of the monastery.

He started building two residences. The smaller one was preserved, and the larger one, which had the room for the bishop was demolished during the 1941 bombing of German aircrafts. There was a monastery library in the larger residence, which was seriously damaged. At the invitation of Nikofir Maksimovic in 1844, the painters Zivko Pavlovic and Nikola Jankovic painted two large artistic unities in the monastery church.

Pavlovic painted walls of the altar and the icons, and Jankovic decorated the walls with frescos.

Monastery treasury keeps: 

- copper plate from 1845;

- metal chalice from XVII - XIV century; 

- the gospel chained and beautifully decorated, printed in Moscow in 1814;

- portrait of Nikifor Maksimovic.

Icons in the church are relatively preserved.

The chapel and the new residence were built recently.

It is a female monastery with 17 nuns and it is active.

(Telegraf.co.uk)