Gradac Monastery
History
The Gradac Monastery, the endowment of Queen Jelena, the wife of King Uroš, was built at the foot of Mount Golija in the last quarter of the 13th century. The monastery complex was built on the site of an older early byzantine basilica. The earliest protective works were carried out in 1947/48. In 1962, the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments began extensive systematic research and conservation and restoration work on architecture and painting. The renovation of the church was completed in 1975, and the monastery life was renewed in 1990. In 1997 it became a women’s monastery.
Cultural site details
The Gradac Monastery is located on the slopes of the Golija Mountain, 21 km away from Raška. The monastery complex consists of n the church dedicated to the Annunciation of the Mother of God, a smaller church dedicated to Saint Nicolas, dining rooms and economic rooms leaning against a massive perimeter wall. The Church of the Annunciation belongs to the Raška style group, with base of a single-nave building with a dome, a three-part altar space on the east and a narthex on the west.
The monastery church contains all the important features of Raška temples, with elements of Gothic. The beauty of the painting, which is preserved only in fragments, can be seen especially in the beautiful scene of the Nativity.
The exterior decoration of the facade is dominated by romantic and gothic decorative elements. In the interior of the temple, the founder's composition has been preserved, which depicts King Uroš and King Jelena with a model of the temple which, together with St. Simeon Nemanja, the Mother of God brings to the Christ at the throne. Beneath the founder's composition is a double sarcophagus intended for the burial of the royal couple.
Jelena Anžujska was buried in the monastery in 1314, and later her body was placed in a sarcophagus, which was located in front of the altar of the main monastery church, in front of the icon of Christ. The sarcophagus was kept in the monastery until the 17th century, when the monks took it with them during the escape from the Ottoman army. The sarcophagus has not been known since.