Monastery Brezojevica

Location :

• Marijana Dašić

  21 August 2016

  ♥

  response / report this review
• Jovan Nikolić

  24 March 2016

  The monastery in front of you has for centuries been a spiritual centre and gathering place of the Orthodox population of Plav and Gusinje. Once the processional church banner used to be raised here, and people gathered around the same dining table and then went on religious processions. Even today, as several hundred years ago, the Monastery of the Holy Trinity in Brezojevice is a gathering place to which visitors from the whole region come. There are no written sources regarding the time of the church’s construction. According to local tradition, the church in Brezojevice is somewhat older than the Visoki Dečani Monastery from 1330, so it is supposed that it was built in the 13th century.
  
  The church is situated at the foot of Gradac Hill, on the left bank of the River Lim, in the vicinity of the former fortified town whose remains can be seen even today. The church was built in the Byzantine style as a single-nave stone structure with rebated arches onto which the narthex was added later. With a large semicircular apse and without a dome, in terms of its architecture, it resembles the old coastal churches. It was built from roughcut stone of varied colours and sizes, arranged in horizontal rows and bound together with mortar. It is interesting to note that the bell tower was not built next to the church, as was common, but somewhat higher above it, on Gradac Hill. That enabled the call for prayer and information about other important events to reach a large number of the Orthodox population in the neighbourhood. Like most churches in this region, the Church of the Holy Trinity has also been destroyed and rebuilt several times. A murasele—a short legal proclamation—of Ali-Bey of Gusinje from 1864 regarding the restoration of the church has been preserved. It is recorded that the monks of the Visoki Dečani Monastery also participated in the restoration. The church was also restored after the destruction in the First Balkan War, only to be destroyed again after World War II. Due to a frequent destructions most frescoes of great value, painted between 1566 and 1567, were destroyed. The fragments of frescoes are preserved in the altar, naos and narthex of the monastery, and some of the most notable among them include the composition of the Final Judgment in the narthex and the scene of the Nativity of the Mother of God on the western wall of the naos.
  
  The fresco icon of St Sava located in a prominent place in the altar space has particular significance, on which— in accordance with medieval tradition—he is depicted as a halflength figure, blessing with his right hand and holding an open gospel in his left hand. It is thought that the frescoes of the monastery in Brezojevice were created by the same fresco painting workshop which produced the frescoes of the Morača Monastery. According to the preserved local tradition fresco painting was conducted under the supervision of Prior Nestor. This monk from the Belaja Desert above Dečani was a highly esteemed person of his time, and the cult of old man Nestor as the constructor of Brezojevica Monastery has been preserved among the local population. It is believed that the anchorite’s cell of old man Nestor as well was located in Brezojevice. On the eastern side of the church, on the remnants of the former residential building the first secular school in this region was built. This minor stone structure has been recently restored for the needs of the church.

  response / report this review