Mileševa monastery

Prince Vladislav, the second son of King Stephan First – crowned and grandson of Stephan Nemanja had Mileševa monastery built in 1219. The monastery was dedicated to the resurrection. It was depicted in the third decade of 13th century, before the founder was crowned king in 1234.

Mileševa was the second ranked among all Serbian monasteries, just after Studenica monastery. In 1377 there was the coronation of Stephan Tvrtko Kotromanic as the king of Bosnia and Serbia, while in 1466 Stephan Vukcic Kosaca got the title the ” Duke of St Sava “.

The monastery acquired great fame with the people in 1236 when St. Sava’s body was moved here from Trnovo.

During the 15th century Mileševa was the seat of dabro – bosnian bishops of the Eparchy of Dabar – Bosnia Mileševa was several times pillaged and burned down by Turks, but it was relatively quickly restored thanks to its reputation and help from the people, Romanian, Wallachian and Moldavian princes, then Russian tsars and dignitaries. Among other things, there was a printing shop working in Mileseva in 16th century.

However, in the great fire in 1782 the monastery cells and all the icons being kept in the monastery were burned. Mileševa underwent two great restorations: the first one during patriarch Makarije Sokolovic and the other in 1863 when the church got its current appearance.

Mileševa represents the mausoleum of Saint Sava, a gallery of Serbian medieval painting and the cradle of printing where a printing shop had worked in the period from 1544 to 1557. The printing shop had been procured in Venice not a full century after Gutenberg’ s. The greatest wealth of Mileševa is represented in partly preserved frescoes that are considered the peak of Byzantine 13th century painting. Arthur Evans wrote in Manchester Guardian on September 1st, 1883 that not a thing created by Giotto could be compared with the beauty of the Angel from the Mileševa monastery that was used in a Europe satellite presentation to America in the middle of the 20th century.

The Mileševa Monastery
is situated on the 5th km from the highway in Prijepolje that is connected with the monastery by an asphalt road passing along the Mileševka River.

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