Why so many monasteries?
This is often the first question that comes to mind when one discovers the multitude of monasteries scattered throughout Serbia. The answer, as often, is political and follows the diffusion of the Christian faith in the Balkans. Indeed, despite the conversion to Christianity of the Romans in the 4th century, the spread of Orthodoxy in Roman Serbia is contemporary to that of the Serbian people. When the Slavs arrived en masse to colonize the Balkans, the Roman Empire was relatively unchristianized outside the major cities and the religious hierarchy was mainly urban. For the empire, the conversion of the southern Slavs was as much a political necessity as a proof of pragmatism: the Slavic clans dispersed in the region would become, through conversion, the first guarantors of religious order in the countryside. If the Slavs converted without qualms, it would still take time for them to really appropriate this foreign religion and to facilitate the task, they would integrate their pagan rites with Christian customs, creating from the beginning a particular religious culture compared to their Orthodox neighbors. The Slavic chiefs understood the advantages of this new religion: while they had to share their power with pagan shamans and priests, conversion allowed them to assert themselves within their clan. Moreover, the highly hierarchical system of the Church created an ideal structure for controlling the territory, harvesting the tribes and leading the men. A final advantage was that monks did not (in theory) play politics. If a chief wanted to keep a rich land for himself, without attracting the jealousy of his vassals, all he had to do was to found a monastery there... no jealousy, no possibility of taking back this land (it now belongs to God) and the taxes go into the founder's pocket! A small plus for the most pious, the process also attracts the grace of God, the salvation of one's soul and, more concretely, the favor of the religious and of one's most believing subjects. This win-win process explains the explosion of the foundation of orthodox monasteries in the region, as the influence of the first Serbian princes grew. Thus, Kosovo, the ancestral land of the Serbs, can boast one of the largest concentrations of Christian churches and monasteries in the world after the Vatican! The Nemanjić (or Nemanjides) dynasty is at the heart of this enterprise and for their efforts - the most cynical will say, proof of the very political aspect of the thing - they will all be canonized after their death (with the exception of the most powerful of them, the emperor Dušan)
The Nemanjids, great founders
The founder of the dynasty and of independent Serbia, Stefan Nemanja (canonized at his death as Saint Symeon the Myroblite), himself retired to one of the many monasteries he founded. His son, Rastko, is not to be outdone, as he is the famous St. Sava, patron saint of the Serbs, isapostle (i.e. for the Orthodox he is considered an equal of the apostles of Jesus) and founder of the Autocephalous Church of Serbia in 1217. The symbolic monastery of the early Nemanjid Serbia is Studenica in Rascia, a monument of Serbian culture. It was in this rich monastery that St. Sava declared the independence of the Orthodox Church and wrote the first literary text in the Serbian language, a hagiography of his father entitled The Life of St. Simeon. It is here that the relics of St. Symeon rest, along with another of his sons, Stefan I, the first king of Serbia. However, the golden age of the monasteries took place one hundred and fifty years later, during the golden age of medieval Serbia under Emperor Dušan. He participated in the endowment of many monasteries, renovated the main family monasteries and built many others, including the complex of the Monastery of the Holy Arches in Prizren, Kosovo, where he was buried. This monastery is now a ruin inhabited by a handful of monks, the buildings having been dismantled by the Ottomans to build the nearby mosque of Sinan Pasha.
The Serbian Sinaiticans
The term Sinaitic refers to Serbian clergy with a direct link to the Holy Land. They are either Serbian monks who have received teachings from monasteries in Palestine or from Mount Athos in Greece, or monks who came directly from the Levant to participate in the spiritual life of Serbia. These links between the Balkans and Palestine explain the exceptional dynamism of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
The first of the Sinaites was none other than the great Saint Sava himself, who came to visit the Holy Land on two occasions and made a long spiritual retreat in the Sinai desert. Several monasteries were then financed in Palestine by Saint Sava and these links between the Holy Land and Sinaia never ceased. In the centuries that followed, many church figures were able to enrich Serbian spirituality with teachings from the Holy Land, as well as to pass on a whole range of ancient texts and scientific advances.The time of troubles
The Ottoman occupation, effective from the middle of the 15th century, strongly affected monastic culture. Under the Ottomans, the monasteries were allowed to operate under heavy supervision by the authorities but were not allowed to expand or to carry out overly ambitious projects. While Serbian was no longer recognized as a language of government or literature by the occupying power, the monasteries became the last places to learn the language. It is around the monks that the Serbs will keep a link with their culture, learn their history and thus, quite naturally, gather when they rise against the Ottoman yoke. On the other hand, it is against the monks that the repression of the Turks will be the most severe, as the destruction of the relics of Saint Sava in 1594 testifies. It was the archbishop and rebel monk Arsenije III who led the great migration of Serbs into the Habsburg Empire in 1690 and obtained for them the status of corpus separatum, an autonomous people under the authority of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This new life on the border triggered the foundation of the eighteen monasteries of Fruška gora, one of the best preserved ensembles to date. The revival of the monastery culture continued until independence and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, before taking another blow under Tito's regime after World War II. Many monasteries were closed and converted, and during the Yugoslav wars were targeted, especially by the Albanian KLA in Kosovo.
The great Serbian religious styles
The great Serbian religious buildings borrow from both Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Depending on the region and the period, the Romanesque or the Greek style was preferred, before the appearance of an architecture of its own, a synthesis of these different influences. Unfortunately, these artistic and architectural experiments were cut short on two occasions: the beginning of the Ottoman occupation in 1459 and the arrival of Tito's communist regime in 1945. The evolution of the styles is also geographical, following the migrations of the Serbs towards the north, as they flee the slow Muslim settlement. The oldest monasteries are in Kosovo, ancestral land of the Serbs.
Raška style (school of Rascie): 1170-1300. The Raška style is prevalent in the region of Rascie. It is in direct line with the canons of Romanesque architecture, with solid and very sober facades, sometimes plastered and painted. Churches in this style culminate in a single large dome over the transept, while the western facade opens into a narthex. The school of Rascia is distinguished by its indigenous artistic culture, and has the oldest Serbian-style frescoes in the country. The most famous examples of the Rasca school are the monasteries of Studenica and the magnificent painted monastery of Žiča.
Vardar style (or Serbo-Byzantine style): 1200-1300. Contemporary to the Raška style, the "Byzantine" Vardar style is directly inspired by Byzantine architectural canons. Churches in this style have a classical cross plan, topped by five slender domes. Their facades are made of ashlar or brick, with friezes in red, gray or yellow depending on the materials available. Unlike the Raška churches, the motifs of the Vardar frescoes are exact copies of the Byzantine classics and develop themes common to the Greek world. Vardar churches often include a narthex on their western façade. This style is most common in the south of the country, on the Macedonian border. The most famous examples of the Vardar style are the Gračanica Monastery in Kosovo and the King's Church in the Studenica Monastery.
Moravian style: 1370-1459. The Moravian style was born on the banks of the Morava River. It is the synthesis of the experiences of the builders of the previous centuries and constitutes the true Serbian indigenous style. It became more and more pronounced in the monasteries of the golden age of the Serbian Empire, but it came to an abrupt halt after its fall, partly because the development of the techniques used and the effort put into the decorations required large funds that are no longer available. The Moravian style is very recognizable by its reduced cross plan, also called cloverleaf plan. This gives a more monumental stature and pushes the buildings upwards. Rather than domes, the decorative effort is turned to friezes and motifs on the facades. As in the Vardar style, the facades are decorated with colored stones, but this time they systematically form geometric patterns. The interior of Moravian churches is dominated by Serbian frescoes that do not follow the Byzantine canons. The greatest examples of Moravian style are the monasteries of Ravanica and Kalenić.
Modern Serbo-Byzantine style: 1850-1939. Also known as the Neo-Byzantine style, it is related to the architectural revival intended for independent Serbia and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. If it is inspired by the Byzantine Vardar style, it is also the fruit of its time and sees great romantic and Art Nouveau influences. It is a more monumental style than its predecessors, used also for civil buildings such as in Belgrade the old post office (in restoration after it was massacred by the communists) or the museum of PTT. The style has gone through different phases. The first, very ornate, favors brick and friezes. The last, much more sober, prefigures the Soviet styles. The Neo-Byzantine churches follow the Greek cross and five-domed plan, with preferably plastered facades and dimensions that have nothing to do with their medieval predecessors. The largest religious building in the country, the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade, is a late neo-Byzantine example.
