Rakovica Monastery: A Serbian Orthodox Monastery in Belgrade
Site at a Glance
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- Serbia
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- Eras represented
- Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Ottoman, Serbian
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- Religious
- Remains
- Monastery
On this page13 sections
History
Rakovica Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery in Belgrade, Serbia, dedicated to the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. It belongs to the Archdiocese of Belgrade and Karlovci, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and is mentioned in records from the sixteenth century. It is described as Belgrade’s oldest sacred structure where regular services continue to be held.
Origins and early locations
Tradition places the monastery’s foundation in the early fourteenth century, during the reign of either King Dragutin or King Milutin. Both rulers have sometimes been identified as its founders or ktetors, meaning founders or principal patrons of an Orthodox church or monastery, but no historical record confirms this attribution. Another tradition credits Miloš Obilić with the foundation, while a later account says that a local man named Raka rebuilt the monastery in the fifteenth century after it had been destroyed by the Ottomans.
An older monastery dedicated to the Dormition of the Mother of God, known as Crkva Prevelika, apparently preceded Rakovica. It reportedly consisted of a church, monastic residences, and a metochion, a dependent monastic estate or subordinate religious establishment. The site also served as a meeting place for monks from other monasteries. A separate monastery called Rakovica, dedicated to the Holy Archangel Michael, stood farther east near present-day Selo Rakovica, between Rakovica and Vrčin and close to the foothills of Mount Avala.
The earliest written reference to Rakovica Monastery appears in Feliks Petančić’s travel account of 1502, where it is called “Ranauicence monasterium.” The monastery also appears in an Ottoman census of 1560 listing churches and monasteries in the area around Belgrade. A 1701 charter issued by Wallachian Duke Constantin Brâncoveanu Besaraba states that the monastery had been built “from the foundations” by the deceased Duke Radula, who is tentatively identified with Radu I of Wallachia, Prince Lazar’s son-in-law and ruler from 1377 to 1385. The charter also records a gift of 100 large pieces of salt.
Relocation and Ottoman destruction
The earlier monastery stood near an important crossroads and nearby settlements, a position that exposed it to repeated attacks. It was destroyed during the Ottoman advance toward Vienna in 1592 and the unrest of 1594. Continued plundering led the monks to move gradually to the present, more secluded location in the forest.
Construction of the Church of the Holy Archangel Michael began around 1600, and the monastic complex developed around it. The church’s construction is also placed within the broader period between the restoration of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć in 1557 and the Great Migrations of the Serbs in 1690. These migrations involved the movement of Serb populations and clergy into Habsburg-controlled territories during the late seventeenth century.
War, migration, and reconstruction
During the Great Migration of 1690, part of the brotherhood left for territories under Austrian rule, taking relics and books with them. The monk Grigorije took part in diplomatic efforts associated with the Treaty of Karlowitz of 1699. Rakovica received money, books, icons, and other gifts from Russia. It also shared an administration with Tresije Monastery on Mount Kosmaj, and its apparent prosperity helped finance the reconstruction of Tresije.
During the Austro-Turkish wars of 1716 to 1718 and 1737 to 1739, the clergy supported Austria. When Ottoman control was restored in 1739, the clergy and local population fled to Austria with almost all the monastery’s relics. They settled at Velika Remeta Monastery in Syrmia, the historical region between the Danube and Sava rivers. The Ottomans later allowed the monks to return. An administrative union between Rakovica and Velika Remeta was proclaimed on 14 September 1739, but it was never put into effect because the two monasteries lay in different states.
Rakovica was destroyed again during the Austro-Turkish War of 1788 to 1791. Ottoman forces burned it in retaliation for the monks’ support of Austria, and the abbot Sofronije was hanged from the elm tree in front of the monastery. Reconstruction proceeded slowly. The monastery was damaged during both the First Serbian Uprising of 1804 to 1813 and the Second Serbian Uprising of 1815, nineteenth-century revolts that led to the gradual liberation of Serbia from Ottoman rule. Its monks actively participated in the uprisings.
The Obrenović period
Prince Miloš Obrenović became the principal patron of Rakovica’s reconstruction after his infant son Todor was buried there in 1830. Miloš ruled from 1815 to 1839 and again from 1858 to 1860. He financed the monastic cells, a grand dining room, and one konak, a monastic residential or administrative building. His wife Ljubica and his sister-in-law Tomanija Obrenović also contributed to the rebuilding. Tomanija financed the belfry and another konak. Because of this royal support, Rakovica became known as the “court’s monastery.” Prince Mihailo Obrenović later continued his father’s patronage.
The monastery contains the burials of members of the Obrenović family, including Todor, Miloš Obrenović’s infant son; Miloš’s brother Jevrem; Jevrem’s wife, Tomanija Bogićević Obrenović; their daughter Simka; and other descendants. Milivoje Blaznavac, a Serbian military general and prime minister, is also buried there. Vasa Čarapić, one of the leaders of the First Serbian Uprising, lies near the church. Serbian Patriarch Dimitrije was buried at Rakovica in 1930, while Patriarch Pavle was buried there in 2009 at his own request. Pavle’s grave later became a pilgrimage site.
Education and twentieth-century changes
A monastic school opened at Rakovica in 1905 and was the first school of its kind in Serbia. A new building, Platon’s konak, was erected in 1925. The school continued until 1932, when it moved to Visoki Dečani Monastery in Metohija. On 19 December 1909, Nikolaj Velimirović took his monastic vows at Rakovica. Tadej Štrbulović was sent to the monastery’s iconography school after becoming a monk and was ordained a hieromonk, an Orthodox monk who is also a priest, there on 3 February 1938.
The monastery escaped damage in both world wars. During the Second World War, the occupying German army briefly detained Patriarch Gavrilo there. The surrounding forest was cut down during the war, and artificial Lake Kijevo was drained between 1941 and 1947, changing the landscape around the monastery.
Rakovica housed the Serbian Orthodox Church’s Orthodox theology faculty from 1947 until the faculty moved to new facilities in the Belgrade neighborhood now known as Bogoslovija in 1958. Children from a former hospital for mycosis were temporarily relocated to the monastery, and the church was fenced off from the konak while the hospital remained there.
In 1959, Patriarch German converted Rakovica into a convent, a monastery for women, and obtained sewing machines so the abbesses could produce clothing and garments for the community. Rakovica remains a female monastery, with an abbess, novices, and other members of the community living in the complex. The monastery was damaged by the NATO bombing in 1999, particularly along the front wall of the old church, which had already suffered earlier damage.
Recent religious development
The Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was added to the complex in 2002. Its feast, celebrated on 28 August, is the monastery’s official slava, the Serbian Orthodox patronal observance of a family, community, or institution. Following the burial of Patriarch Pavle in 2009, weddings and baptisms were discontinued within the monastery proper to preserve peace in the complex. A memorial room dedicated to Patriarch Pavle opened in 2021.
Rakovica is legally designated a cultural monument of great importance. The growing number of religious buildings has also led to the name “Rakovica Athos,” an allusion to Mount Athos, a major Orthodox monastic center. Archaeological investigations at the former monastery location took place in 2007 and again from 16 July to 16 August 2008. They identified a medieval necropolis and the remains of an honourable table, the altar table in an Orthodox church, indicating that a sacral structure had stood nearby, although the former Rakovica building itself was not conclusively identified.
Remains
The monastery stands at 34 Patrijarha Dimitrija Street on the eastern slopes of 209-metre Straževica Hill, in the valley of Rakovički Creek between Straževica and Pruževica hills. The present complex contains buildings dating from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries. Its central church is surrounded by monastic residences and other religious buildings, while the wider grounds include a small park, a vineyard, and several memorial features.
The Church of the Holy Archangels
The central Church of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel is a one-nave church with three conches, or apsidal projections, influenced by the medieval Morava architectural school. Its nave follows the form of a reduced inscribed cross, although that plan is not expressed in the exterior. Two domes rise above the building, with the larger one over the central bay of the nave and the smaller one above the narthex, the entrance area of the church.
Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century alterations substantially changed the upper structure. During the 1861 reconstruction, the upper section was added and the original roof tiles were replaced with sheet metal. A projecting cornice divides the facade horizontally into unequal lower and upper zones. The present facade differs considerably from the original appearance, particularly because it has been covered with plaster.
The first iconostasis, the screen separating the sanctuary from the nave and carrying sacred images, was a wall partition with central icons of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Other wooden and canvas icons occupied the remaining spaces. A smaller iconostasis was installed in 1862 with financial support from Prince Mihailo Obrenović. Its decoration combines Classical and Baroque woodcarving elements, and its icons were replaced in the early twentieth century with works painted by Rafailo Momčilović.
Relics and surviving objects
Rakovica preserves relics of the hieromartyrs Procopius of Scythopolis and Theodore of Tyre, Saint Nectarios of Aegina, and a particle of the True Cross. Patriarch German brought these relics from Jerusalem in 1959. Icons donated by Russian Emperor Peter the Great after 1699 remained at Rakovica until at least 1737, when monks carried them to Velika Remeta. Ustaše forces looted the monastery during the Second World War and took the icons to Zagreb; they are now held by the Gallery of Matica Srpska.
Later churches and sacred places
The Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God, also called Velika Gospojina, stands across from the old church. Built within the complex in 2002, it was formally opened on 28 August of that year.
A water source was found at a depth of 100 metres on the slopes of Zmajevac Hill in Miljakovac. It supplies the monastery, and a small Church of the Annunciation was completed beside the spring in 2015. The complex also contains the Sveta Petka spring, associated with Parasceva of the Balkans, an Orthodox female saint linked in popular devotion with healing springs. A small chapel stands beside it, and local tradition attributes healing powers to the water.
Construction of the small Church of Saint Nicholas of Myra began in March 2018. The building stands about 100 metres from the monastery gates, at the foot of the hill near the road, and was intended as a road church for elderly and ill visitors. Its first service took place on 19 November 2018. The unfinished church opened to the congregation at Easter on 21 April 2019, and Patriarch Irinej consecrated it on 23 November 2019. Wedding ceremonies are permitted there.
The Church of Saint Nicholas covers 110 square metres and was designed by Olivera Dobrijević. Its construction uses natural materials obtainable in Serbia, including brick walls, oak windows, a natural-stone floor, and a copper-sheet roof. Gray granite from Mount Bukulja and white marble from Venčac were used in the building, with the marble forming the altar. The facade is chiefly in the Morava style, with influences from the Raška architectural school. Inside, mosaics by Đuro Radlović portray Saint Nicholas, Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, Saint Sava, and Saint Petka. Miloš Komad made the white-marble sculptural ornaments, including rosettes.
Residential buildings and memorial features
The monastery includes the Knežev, Ljubičin, and Platonov konaks, together with a drinking fountain designed by Jovan Ilkić. A small hermitage, or anchorite cell, known as the Hermitage of Saint Sava, stood above the monastery until the early twentieth century.
A monument to Vasa Čarapić stands beside the northern outer wall. Dedicated in 1910, it was sculpted by Kosta Jovanović. A memorial plaque on the western wall commemorates soldiers who died in the Balkan Wars of 1912 to 1913.
Former monastery site
The former monastery site near Selo Rakovica contains traces of walls, a column from an honourable table, and a medieval necropolis. Together, these remains indicate that a medieval sacral building existed nearby, while the material remains of the former monastery have not been conclusively identified.
Nearby sites
