Žiča Monastery
Red-walled 13th-century monastery near Kraljevo where medieval Serbian kings were crowned.
Žiča was founded in the first years of the thirteenth century by Stefan the First-Crowned and his brother Sava, and consecrated around 1219 as the seat of the newly autocephalous Serbian archbishopric. The Church of the Holy Saviour follows the Raška plan, a single nave with a dome, a wide narthex and a tall bell tower, and its walls are rendered in the deep red wash traditionally associated with the monastery. Seven Serbian kings are said to have been crowned here, and the monastery remained a coronation church throughout the medieval period.
The complex was damaged repeatedly, notably in Tatar and Ottoman raids and again during the Second World War, and the present fabric is the result of successive restorations, the most thorough in the twentieth century. Fragments of the earliest thirteenth-century wall painting survive in the tower and narthex, alongside later fourteenth-century frescoes. Žiča is a working convent and the seat of the Eparchy of Žiča, with an icon-painting workshop founded in 1978, a publishing house and gardens and orchards covering several hectares.
Highlights
- Coronation church of the medieval Serbian kings
- Church of the Holy Saviour with its distinctive red walls
- Surviving 13th-century fresco fragments in tower and narthex
- Working convent with an icon-painting workshop
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