ST. SEPHANE MONASTERY ARHIĐAKONA

It is the last Serbian monastery at the northern end of the country. The monastery consists of residential districts with a chapel, a lonely steeple and a church. The rich owner Stevan Konjovic of Sombor, in the Orthodox Church of 1909, left a great fortune by committing himself to building a monastery here. Construction of the monastery church, designed by Svetozar Krotin, began in 1928 to complete in 1933. Due to a lack of money for interior decoration, the church was painted only in 1938 with the frescoes of Vladimir Predojević, when Dr Nenad Bugarski donated the necessary money. The monastery was built in the Serbian-Byzantine style, rare here in Vojvodina. Its facade has two towers: on the right side of the exterior facade is a large iron door that leads to the tomb. Above the northern apse of the church is the Crucifixion, above the southern apse lies the Nativity, and above the west apse lies the Descent of Christ into the underworld. The iconostasis is wooden, painted by the Russian artist Boris Seljanko. The royal doors are Jean Baptiste, the Madonna, the Annunciation, Christ, the archdeacon and the first martyr of Sveti Stefan. In the window above the royal doors, the Supper is the supper. In the area around the endowment Stevan Konjovic lies the Partisans and cemetery of the red Army where the participants of the battles are buried.