Manasija Monastery — Attraction in Despotovac Municipality

The Manasija also known as Resava, is a Serbian Orthodox monastery near Despotovac, Serbia, founded by Despot Stefan Lazarević between 1406 and 1418. The church is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It is one of the most significant monuments of medieval Serbian culture and it belongs to the "Morava school". The monastery is surrounded by massive walls and towers. Immediately following its foundation, the monastery became the cultural centre of the Serbian Despotate. Its School of Resava was well known for its manuscripts and translations throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, even after the fall of the Despotate to the Ottoman Turks. Manasija complex was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia, and monastery have entered a UNESCO Tentative List Process in 2010. Construction of the monumental mausoleum and the fortified town lasted about a decade, with breaks. During this period, a church, large refectory, lodgings, adjacent buildings, towers and walls, fortifications with protective walls and trenches were constructed. Monastery founder Despot Stefan built Manasija to serve as his mausoleum; in its grandeur, his resting place surpassed everything ever built in the Pomoravlje. The monumental and imposing Church of Manasija, together with the contemporary monuments Ravanica, Ljubostinja, Kalenić, Gornjak, Pavlica, bear witness to the last great artistic achievement of Morava's Serbia. The refectory was built parallel to the church, and is one of the largest known structures in medieval Serbia, which was completely covered in frescoes. The monastery compound was encircled and protected by strong walls with eleven towers and trenches. The Church of Manasija Monastery was consecrated on the Feast of Pentecost in 1418, after about 2,000 square metres of frescoes had been painted. Only a quarter of the paintings survived, but even these are among the most beautiful in the outstandingly rich treasure of old Serbian painting. During the five centuries of Ottoman presence, the monastery was abandoned and wrecked several times. The lead roof was removed from the church, and so for over a century the frescoes inside were subject to damage by rainfall. As a result, about two-thirds of them were irremediably lost. In the 18th century, the western part of the church - the narthex - was heavily damaged in an explosion and was later rebuilt. The mosaic floor of that part of the church was preserved. Architecturally, the church belongs to the Morava school. The ground plan is in the form of a floral inscribed cross, combined with a trefoil. The twelve-sided dome above the central space rests on four free-standing pillars. At the eastern end, there are one large and two small apses, whereas two large choir conches flank the altar. Above the corners of the church, there are four little octagonal domes. The narthex consists of nine bays. Above the central bay, there is yet another dome that rests on four pillars. On the inside, the original floor has been preserved in the narthex, made of marble tiles in various colours. Nearly half of the frescoes have been destroyed. Despot Stefan is portrayed with the church model on the left-hand wall. The lower register of the north choir depicts warrior-saints in armour with swords and lances, as an authentic representation of contemporaneous soldiers. There are also 24 portraits of the Old Testament prophets and patriarchs in the spacious dome. The Monastery fortress, made up to defend the monastery, consists of 11 towers linked with huge walls and once, with trenches. An archaeological team from the UK led by Marin Brmbolićlocated the remains of a person whom some claim to be Despot Stefan Lazarević in the southwestern part of the monastery floor. DNA comparison with the remains of his father, Knez Lazar, confirmed that the remains belong to two closely related individuals. However, there is no doubt that Stefan's brother Vuk was buried in Manasija and the remains could as well...

Manasija Monastery is located in the Resava river gorge, about 135km south-east of Belgrade. As an endowment of Despot Stefan Lazarević, the monastery was built in the hard times after the Battle at Kosovo (1389) and its construction lasted from 1406/7 to 1418. Its special feature is its fortification, capable of defending and protecting the monastery settlement.

The Manasija fortification has eleven towers and a specially defended section at its east end with the twelfth tower. In their defence and architectural features, the towers are identical to each other - all having the ground level, six storeys and the passageway with merlons. They are connected by defensive walls - the ramparts, also with merlon crenelation. Between the towers and the ramparts a connection is made through special passages on the fourth storey of each tower, allowing the defenders to move around all the time, as well as a good monastery defence. Only a donjon was not built in the same way.

The towers and the ramparts have machicolations - defensive galleries, quite rare in Serbian military architecture. Actually, it came indirectly into use in Serbia - as a result of Byzantine influence, whereas the crusading campaigns to the Holy Land brought them to Byzantium from the West.

In front of the main wall with the towers, there was a lower rampart with a sloping scarp, today mostly in ruins, and in one section there was a ditch with the counterscarp. Such a defence concept allowed two level of the monastery defence, and with the implemented solutions on the Belgrade fortifications, it became a model for constructing the Smederevo double ramparts in the later period.

The donjon had its special place in the monastery defence system, today recognised and the Despot's Tower. It is the most massive and the only closed tower, with the ground level 11m elevated from the monastery yard level. The tower interior is partitioned with wooden structures between the five storeys. On the fifth level there are defensive galleries - machicolations, having a significant role in the safety of the donjon. The Despot's Tower of Manasija is one of the most successful structures in the Serbian military architecture and can compared with the crusade fortifications along the Asia Minor coast, but also with the towers of the Mount Athos monasteries.

In its special and general architectural arrangement and its numerous details, the monastery church belongs to the Morava School style in the Serbian sacral architecture. It consists of two clearly separated sections - the nave and the narthex. The nave is of a rectangular cruciform ground plan, with five cupolas combined with a triconch. It was built of sandstone blocks and the exterior decoration is made by combining the Byzantine and...

Saint Despot Stefan Lazarevic, 1377 Krusevac, July 19 ,1427 Crkvine-Mladenovac, the son of Saint Knez Lazar Hrebeljanovic (The Kosovo field battle 1389 )

Manasija is a Serbian Orthodox monastery near Despotovac, Serbia, founded by Despot Stefan Lazarević between 1406 and 1418. The church is dedicated to the Holy Trinity. It is one of the most significant monuments of medieval Serbian culture and it belongs to the "Morava school". The monastery is surrounded by massive walls and towers. Immediately following its foundation, the monastery became the cultural centre of the Serbian Despotate. Its School of Resava was well known for its manuscripts and translations throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, even after the fall of the Despotate to the Ottoman Turks. Manasija complex was declared Monument of Culture of Exceptional Importance in 1979, and it is protected by Republic of Serbia, and monastery have entered a UNESCO Tentative List Process in 2010

The Manasija Monastery, also known as Resava, was built two kilometres northwest from the town of Despotovac, in the picturesque ravine. Construction of the monumental mausoleum and the fortified town lasted about a decade, with breaks. During this period, a church, large refectory, lodgings, adjacent buildings, towers and walls, fortifications with protective walls and trenches were constructed.

…across hills and fields and deserts he went looking for a place on which to build the desired family, the silent home. Having found the most suitable and the best site to build the home and having said a prayer, he approached the task and laid the foundations in the name of the Holy Trinity, universal Divinity…" (Constantine the Philosopher, 1433)

Despot Stefan Lazarević (founder's portrait (Fresco) on the left-hand wall in monastery church to the Holy Trinity (1413—1418).

Monastery founder Despot Stefan built Manasija to serve as his mausoleum; in its grandeur, his resting place surpassed everything ever built in the Pomoravlje. The monumental and imposing Church of Manasija, together with the contemporary monuments (Ravanica, Ljubostinja, Kalenić, Gornjak, Pavlica…), bear witness to the last great artistic achievement of Morava's Serbia.

The refectory was built parallel to the church, and is one of the largest known structures in medieval Serbia, which was completely covered in frescoes. The monastery compound was encircled and protected by strong walls with eleven towers...