Archangel Monastery (Prizren)
The Archangel Monastery ( Serbian Манастир Свети Арханђели Manastir Sveti Arhanđeli ) is a monastery complex of the Serbian Orthodox Church near Prizren ( Kosovo ). The monastery was the burial place of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan and was decisive for the development of Serbian architecture in the second half of the 14th century and first half of the 15th century. The main church of the monastery consecrated to the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel was next to the Visoki Dečani monastery the largest church in Serbia in the Middle Ages and one of the largest late medieval church buildings on the Balkan Peninsula. The monastery was burned down on March 17th and 18th, 2004 by radical Albanians from Prizren.
location
The facility is located in the valley of the Prizrenska Bistrica (Bistrica e Prizrenit) east of Prizren in the south of Kosovo . South of the valley rises the heavily forested Šar Planina massif with mountains that are over 2000 m high and thus represent a natural border between Kosovo and North Macedonia . The valley exit was secured by the fortress (Dušanov Grad) built by the Serbian Tsar Dušan in the 14th century , which is located above the Archangel monastery. The Kalaja fortress above the city of Prizren, which was first built in Byzantine times, also served to seal off the valley exit; under the Ottoman occupation it served as a garrison and defensive structure above the city until the end of the 19th century.
history
The monastery complex, which was consecrated to the archangels Michael and Gabriel, was built between 1348 and 1352, for the heyday of the Serbian medieval empire under Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan .
The monastery complex included two churches built in the style of the Raška school : the Archangel and St. Nicholas Church.
Similar plants are located in Visoki Dečani and Gračanica . The Archangel Church served as the burial place of the Serbian Tsar Stefan Uroš IV. Dušan, whose grave slab is preserved within the ruin and has symbolic meaning for the Serbs. The relocation of the tsar's remains to Belgrade took place in 1965. The Archangel Church had one of the most beautiful floor mosaics of all the monastery churches in Southeast Europe , which stylistically came very close to the cosmatic style . A western influence was also evident in the Dušan's tomb, which featured a grave figure and was unique for Serbian and Orthodox Christian art at that time. The main entrance was in the western part of the monastery complex. The associated bridge has been restored in our days. There was also the refectory and a residential building that housed up to 250 monks in the most glamorous times of the monastery . The monastery also had a library , an infirmary and accommodation areas for the monks. In the dining room in the south-western part there was the so-called Kaiserplatz. This place was reserved only for the Serbian tsar, because the monasteries served as palaces and were essential for an effective governance of the Serbian empire.
In 1455 the facility was destroyed by the Ottomans during the Ottoman expansion in Europe under the rule of Sultan Mehmet II. Fatih . The remaining stones were used in 1615 to build the Sinan Pasha Mosque in Prizren, five kilometers away.
It was not until 1927 that Serbian archaeologists rediscovered the muddy remains of the monastery, even if the people in the valley always remembered the monastery.
In the 1960s, the Yugoslav Army expanded the eastern part and used the block, destroyed in the March 2004 riots, as a training center for senior officers.
present
From 1998 to March 17, 2004 there lived seven Serbian Orthodox monks and novices who were sent there by the Patriarch of Belgrade . New residential and farm buildings had been built in the eastern part of the complex, and a woodworking workshop in the western part . The monks living there earned their livelihood from the income they achieved with their woodwork and from donations. In the course of the Kosovo-Albanian riots on March 17 and 18, 2004 , the monastery guarded by UNMIK was burned down by radical Albanians from Prizren; the monks were driven out. A few weeks later the monks returned and have since been under the increased protection of NATO KFOR troops . Completely new accommodations for the monks have been built by the international community.
On May 10, 2011 the responsibility of securing the Archangel Monastery was handed over to the Kosovo Police by KFOR .
architecture
At the Archangel Michael Church, a rose window appears for the first time as a facade element in a Serbian church . With the continuous step bands used here for the first time as a rhythmic accentuation of the facade and the rich architectural sculpture, these characteristic elements formed a new style in the later Morava school . As the late bloom of Byzantine architecture, it was based on the architectural innovations in the Archangel monastery and was continued in the Ravanica tomb, which Prince Lazar of the Michael Church required, as well as the court church Lazar, Lazarica , which was modeled on the construction scheme of the Nikolauskirche in the Archangel monastery .
swell
- ↑ Vladimir Korać, 1972. Les originies de l'architecture de l'école de la Morava . In: Moravska škola i njeno doba: Naučni skup u Resavi 1968 / L'école de la Morave et son temps: Symposium de Résava 1968, edited by Vojislav J. Đurić, pp.157 - 168.Belgrade, 1972.
- ↑ Nadežda Katanic: Dekorativna kamena plastika Moravske škole . S. Prosveta, Republički zavod za zaštitu spomenika kulture, Beograd, 1988. ISBN 86-07-00205-8
- ↑ V. Korac
- ↑ Chronology of the deployment in Kosovo (KFOR) ( memento from February 24, 2013 on WebCite ) , Bundeswehr, website "Bundeswehr im Einsatz", status from: January 10, 2013, archived from the original on February 24, 2013.
literature
- Svetozar Nenadović 1966. Dušanova zadužbina manastir Svetih Arhandjela kod Prizrena . Edition académie serbe des sciences et des arts, Beograd.
Web links
- Studies on the monastery complex (German, English and Serbian)
- How German soldiers protect six Serbian monks - KFOR, the war and a monastery in Kosovo ( Memento from September 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). tagesschau.de, June 19, 2005, by Heiner Heller.
Coordinates: 42 ° 12 ′ 2 ″ N , 20 ° 45 ′ 49 ″ E