Knežina Monastery: A Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Primary era
- Modern
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Serbian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page8 sections
History
Knežina Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Bosnia and Herzegovina, associated with the village of Knežina near Sokolac and with a medieval tradition reaching back to 1371. The monastery is dedicated to the Most Holy Mother of God, while its church is dedicated to Saints Constantine and Helena, the Roman emperor who legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire and his mother, who is traditionally associated with the discovery of the True Cross.
Medieval origins
According to local tradition, an earlier monastery was founded near the Knežina spring in 1371 by Andrijaš, the brother of Marko Kraljević, a major Serbian heroic figure of the fourteenth-century Mrnjavčević dynasty. Andrijaš is also credited with building ten churches in the surrounding area, including three large churches and seven smaller ones in nearby villages. One of these churches stood on the site of the present monastery church. Tradition identifies a second with the building later converted into Sultan Selim’s Mosque, while the location of the third remains unknown.
The earlier monasteries at Knežina were destroyed during the Ottoman advance, and the institution was dissolved after the fall of Bosnia. Foundations near the Knežina spring support the tradition that a medieval monastery stood there.
Reconstruction and wartime destruction
Archpriest Stevo Todorović began rebuilding the old church in 1926. The resulting wooden church was consecrated that year, with Pero Vuković of Babine serving as its ceremonial sponsor and Nešo Jovanović donating its bells. During the Second World War, Ustasha forces, members of the Croatian fascist and ultranationalist movement that controlled the wartime Independent State of Croatia, burned and looted the church. A new stone church was subsequently erected on its foundations in 1962.
Establishment of the monastery
On 8 April 1989, Bishop Vasilije of Zvornik and Tuzla formally established the former parish church of Knežina Parish as the Monastery of the Most Holy Mother of God at Knežina and designated it a metoch of Hilandar. A metoch is a dependent monastery, church, or estate attached to a larger monastery. Hilandar is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos. The Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church confirmed the decision on 13 April.
A large assembly took place at Knežina on 13 August 1989 to commemorate the six-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo and inaugurate the monastery. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated by Bishops Danilo of Buda, Nikolaj of Dalmatia, Vasilije of Srem, and Vasilije of Zvornik and Tuzla, alongside numerous Serbian Orthodox clergy. Attendance was estimated at about 100,000 people, including visitors from Kosovo and Metohija who arrived in more than 100 buses. Representatives of the Roman Catholic Church and the Islamic religious community also attended.
During the gathering, fragments of the relics of Saint Tsar Lazar and a copy of the Three-Handed Mother of God icon were brought to Knežina. Saint Tsar Lazar was the Serbian ruler Lazar Hrebeljanović, closely associated with the Serbian tradition surrounding the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. The icon, an important Orthodox Marian image associated with Hilandar, was intended to remain permanently at Knežina. The monastery’s first monks arrived in 2014. In May 2019, decisions of the Holy Assembly of Bishops transferred Knežina Monastery from the Diocese of Zvornik and Tuzla to the Metropolitanate of Dabar-Bosnia.
Remains
The monastery setting
Knežina Monastery lies in the village of Knežina, 11 kilometres from Sokolac. The wider site includes foundations beside the Knežina spring, identified with the earlier medieval monastery and its 1371 foundation tradition. Other nearby features include unexplored stećci, distinctive medieval South Slavic carved stone funerary monuments, the thermomineral spring called Toplik, and an unexplored cave from which the Bioštica River emerges.
The present church
The monastery church occupies the foundations of the wooden church erected in 1926 and destroyed during the Second World War. The present building was constructed in 1962 from tufa stone by Neđo Maksimović of Srebrenica. Its surviving fabric therefore connects the modern monastery with the earlier twentieth-century church and with the older sacred site associated with the medieval foundations.
Religious objects
Knežina preserves a copy of the Three-Handed Mother of God icon and fragments of the relics of Saint Tsar Lazar. Both were brought to the monastery during the 1989 inauguration and remain part of its religious heritage.
