Vitovnica Monastery

The Vitovnica Monastery ( Serbian : Манастир Витовница / Manastir Vitovnica, short: Vitovnica) is a Serbian Orthodox monastery in eastern Serbia , which is located on the bank of the river of the same name . The patronage of the monastery is the Assumption of the Virgin .

History of the monastery

12th century - foundation of the monastery

The Serbian King Stefan Uroš II Milutin had the monastery built in 1291 after defeating Bulgarian irregulars who had their base not far from Vitovnica.

With his foundation, the construction of the Vitovnica Monastery, St. Milutin wanted to confirm his victory over the irregulars. Mihailo Riznić wrote in the yearbook of the Serbian Archaeological Society of 1888: “King Milutin had this monastery built after the fight against the Tatars in 1291. Milutin gathered a strong army around him and defeated the Tatars so devastatingly that the Mlava river turned blood red. "

16th Century

The monastery is mentioned many times in the 16th century in both Serbian and Turkish sources. Turkish records from 1537 show that three monks lived in the monastery at the time, which had to pay high taxes . This means that the monastery must have been very wealthy in this era . The famous Vitovnica Gospel has been preserved from the 16th century.

The Vitovnica Gospel Book

The Gospels of Vitovnica is a hand-written document that was written in the first half of the 16th century monastery Vitovnica. It is known from reliable sources that it is set in gilded silver in 1557. The gospel book was written in black ink and more important notes are highlighted with molten gold . Ornaments and initials were made with gold, blue, red and green paint, while the individual sentences are separated from each other by a golden point.

When the monks of Vitovnica had to flee from the Ottomans in 1690 , they found refuge in the Bešenovo monastery ( northern Serbia ), which was then part of Austria-Hungary . They also brought their gospels with them. Today the Vitovnica Gospels are kept in the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade .

17th century

The history of the Vitovnica Monastery in the 17th century is documented in the monastery books. Some of these works were kept in the National Library, but burned by the National Socialists during World War II . A book written before 1620 is kept in the Kiev library. It contains the dedication: "This book is dedicated to the Vitovnica monastery by priest-monk Nikifor."

After the Austro-Turkish War , the Vitovnica monastery was probably empty, as the monks had fled from the Ottomans across the Danube in all directions in 1690 . Most of the monks entered the Bešenovo monastery in the Fruška Gora region, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. The so-called Vitovnica mug, which has been made in 1652, dates from this period. All ornaments on the mug are gold-plated. The mug is now also kept in the Museum of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade .

18th century

At the beginning of the 18th century, some monks returned to Vitovnica. An envoy from the Metropolitan of Karlovci (today: Sremski Karlovci ) visited Vitovnica in 1733. At that time, two monks lived there.

When Austria lost the war against the Ottomans in 1739 , the monastery was again empty. The Vitovnica monks had settled again in Bešenovo for fear of Ottoman vengeance. The monastery faced difficult times: Until the First Serbian Uprising, there was no further mention of the Vitovnica Monastery in historical sources.

When the inventory in the Bešenovo Monastery was recorded in 1753, the property of the Vitovnica Monastery was listed separately, but the brotherhood did not return to Vitovnica. The sacred treasures of Vitovnica remained in Bešenovo until the Second World War, before the monastery there was set on fire and plundered by the Ustascha (Croatian fascists).

19th century - a time of renewal and prosperity

After the Second Serbian Uprising (1815-1817), the reconstruction of the Vitovnica monastery began. In the middle of the 19th century, the sanctuary flourished noticeably as a result of the commitment of some abbots from the Vitovnica monastery: the church was painted with frescoes in 1851 , and three buildings and a bell tower were erected. The entire monastery complex was completed in 1856.

In the meantime, the monastery had developed so positively that in 1861 it had a primary school built in the village of Vitovnica at its own expense .

20th century

The Vitovnica disaster

However, the heyday of Vitovnica came to an abrupt end due to historical circumstances in the first half of the 20th century.

During the First World War, the Serbian municipality Petrovac na Mlavi (Petrovac an der Mlava), to which Vitovnica belongs today, was occupied by Bulgarian troops. The Bulgarian troops took Abbot Isaiah (Isaija) Bogdanović to an internment camp in 1915, where he was murdered. Vitovnica was then plundered: the occupying troops took away the monastery archive, valuable sacred objects and the herds of cattle. In the north wall of the central nave of the Vitovnica monastery church were the relics of an unknown monk, which were also looted by the Bulgarian troops.

Before the monastery was able to recover from the attack by the Bulgarian occupation troops, there was another stroke of fate - under German and communist occupation.

After the attack on a German patrol not far from the Vitovnica monastery, the German occupying forces gave the order to burn down the monastery. All objects fell victim to the flames, except for the church and its bell tower. All Konaks, farm buildings and everything that had been built with great effort throughout the 19th century was burned down by the National Socialists in 1943. The brotherhood of the monastery managed to hide in the surrounding forests, but Hierodiacon Avakum Momčilović was taken by the German troops to the Banjica concentration camp (Belgrade), where he was murdered.

When local communists from the village of Vitovnica came to power in 1945, the remaining brotherhood was also murdered, and the entire property of the monastery was confiscated. The communists also had the abbot of Vitovnica, priest monk Mardarij Zdravković, murdered. The priest monk Sava Marković was only 33 years old when he was killed.

The arduous reconstruction

In 1946, the church administration sent the priest monk Chrysostom (Hrizostom) Pajić, who was appointed abbot, to the depopulated and burned monastery. Under extremely difficult circumstances, without a roof over his head, he set about rebuilding the monastery. It is thanks to him that the monasticism of Vitovnica was able to continue in the darkest days of communism.

It is thanks to the commitment of the abbots in the post-war years that it went ahead in the Vitovnica Monastery and that the ensemble was partially restored after the enormous damage it suffered in the first half of the 20th century.

Saint Thaddäus (Tadej) from Vitovnica

St. Thaddäus (Tadej) Štrbulović of Vitovnica was born on October 6, 1914 in the village of Vitovnica, not far from the Vitovnica monastery complex. He entered the monastery in 1935 and, after returning to his homeland from Kosovo in 1955 , helped rebuild the Vitovnica monastery. In 1962 he became the archimandrite of the monastery. In 2003 he passed away.

He is venerated as a contemporary saint by Orthodox believers. His grave in Vitovnica is a place where many people gather. The Orthodox memorial day of St. Thaddeus (Tadej) Štrbulović is March 31.