Church of St. Sava (Gračac)

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The Church of St. Sava in Gračac

The Church of St. Sava ( Serbian : Црква Светог Саве, Crkva Svetog Save) is a Serbian Orthodox church in the village of Gračac, part of the Opština Vrnjačka Banja, in the Raška district in south-central Serbia .

Today the church is consecrated to the Serbian national saint, the first archbishop and the illuminator of the Serbian people, Sava of Serbia and is a state-protected cultural monument of the Republic of Serbia. The first patronage of the church was the solemnity of the Passage to the Temple .

It is the parish church of the Gračac parish and parish in the Žiča deanery , the Žiča eparchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church .

location

The Church of St. Sava is located in the hamlet of Otroke in the Gornji Gračac part of the village, on a wooded slope of the Goč Mountains , below the Ornica hill on the left bank of the Gračačka reka river . The Gračačka reka flows into the Western Morava in the village area .

The village of Gračac is located about four km from the Vrnjačka Banja- Kraljevo highway. The church can be reached on foot or by vehicle via an asphalt road from the north and east. A dense mixed forest borders the church to the south and west .

It can be reached via a small bridge over the river. A wall was built around the churchyard with an entrance portal on which there is a patronage fresco of St. Sava. Next to the church is the new Serbian Orthodox village cemetery from the 19th century. The old cemetery has been overgrown by the forest. Next to the church are two tombs of priests who worked in the church.

In the churchyard next to the church there is a small bell tower, a small chapel for lighting candles, and since 2015 a village museum in the renovated building of the former village school from 1818. This school is in the records of the famous Serbian philologist and reformer of the Serbian language Vuk Stefanović Karadžić mentioned. Opposite the church is the new village school built in 1909.

history

Indications point to a settlement by the ancient Romans in today's village area.

According to legends, on the site of an older church building, a temple passage church was built in the 13th century during the Nemanjid era. St. Sava and his father St. Simeon Mirotočivi are said to have commissioned the construction of the church when they were looking for building materials for the Žiča monastery. This would make the church older than the famous Žiča monastery in the area.

When the relics of St. Sava were transferred from the Bulgarian Veliko Tarnowo to the Mileševa monastery in the south-west Serbian mountainous region about 5 km east of Prijepolje , they are said to have been kept for one night in the church.

Exact details of the time of the church building and its custodians are missing.

According to archaeological investigations carried out by the Kraljevo Monument Institute in 2010, indications of the existence of an older church building were confirmed, but these do not match the legends. On the ground level of the oldest part of the building, two in-situ tombstones from the 14th-15th centuries were erected. Discovered in the 19th century.

The church was rebuilt after another destruction during the Ottoman period, probably at the beginning of the 17th century, as evidenced by some old church objects (a candle holder and a vessel for storing the Epiphany water) and a cloth donated in 1765.

At the beginning of the 19th century, only the foundations on which the new church was built in 1812 remained. This was dedicated to its first ktitor, St. Sava. Parish priest Radovan Šućurević had this church renewed again in 1842.

In 2015 the Bishop of the Eparchy Žiča Justin (Stefanović) consecrated the new narthex of the church, the new frescoes inside, the chapel, and the crosses on the bell tower and the chapel. The current parish priest (2020) is Mladen Milivojević.

architecture

Today's church, dating from 1812, is a smaller rectangular building with a vaulted roof , an elongated nave and a semicircular altar - apse in the east with a small round dome over the east side.

In addition to the main entrance in the west, including the narthex, there is a narrow side entrance on the north facade. The original floor consisted of rectangular or trapezoidal marble slabs with or without cross decorations. According to the church records, this floor was replaced with a new one at the beginning of the 20th century due to its dilapidation.

Typically for Orthodox church buildings, it has an iconostasis with icons . It is also painted inside with artistically valuable Byzantine frescoes of more recent dates.

supporting documents

literature

  • Грујовић Брковић, Катарина; Алексић Чеврљаковић, Марија (2016). Поглед кроз наслеђе. Краљево: Завод за заштиту споменика културе. ISBN 978-86-84867-05-8 .