Ravanica Monastery, Cuprija

Amazing place, so calm and quiet. Placed in a beautiful spot in nature. Church inside is absolutely astonishing. Many monastery products can be bought there. Heritage from Car Lazar, very important Serbian royal. Strongly recommended.

The Ravanica Monastery is a monastery in Serbia, the endowment of Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović. The Ravanica church was built in 1375 in the Moravian architectural style. The church is built with alternating rows of stone and brick, decorated with ceramic decorative elements and rich relief plastic. After the Battle of Kosovo and Lazar's death, his relics were transferred to Ravanič. Since then, the monastery has become a place of pilgrimage and a focal point around which the cult of Prince Lazar, the martyr of Kosovo, is created. The Ravanica monastery was destroyed and burned several times, and it was not the church itself that suffered, but the fortifications and the monastery buildings. The church suffered badly in 1686/7. years. The painting in Ravanica was badly damaged then, and entire parts of the walls are still without frescoes. On the frescoes, which were preserved in the altar and the main interior space of the church, certain novelties related to the schemes in the choice of themes and cycles can be noticed, which will become the rule in the painting of the later temples of Moravian Serbia. In the domes there are frescoes of Christ, the Virgin, Angels and prophets, in the altar there are representations of Christ's Passion and Incarnation, while in the nave there are cycles of Great Holidays, Miracles and Gospel stories as well as holy warriors and monks.