On 28, our group of pilgrims visited Mileshevo, one of Serbia’s most famous and ancient monasteries, one intimately involved in the history of the Serbian people. It is not far from the town of Priepolje.
In the 13th Century, and with the blessing of Holy Hierarch St. Savva, the monastery was built by his relative the Serbian Prince St. Vladislav. Presumably, the earliest and most precious frescoes in the Cathedral Church of the Ascension of the Lord were painted by Greek master iconographers from Thessalonika. The most renowned fresco, the White Angel at the tomb of the Lord, a masterpiece of medieval Serbian representational art, is on the Southern wall of the church. (A reproduction of that fresco hangs in our parish hall.)
In 1237, the relics of Holy Hierarch Savva were brought from Tirnov, the capital of Bulgaria, to Mileshevo. King Ioann II Asen of Bulgaria, father-in-law and ally of St. Vladislav, initially did not want to give up the relics of the first Serbian archbishop, but a vision during the night, sent to him from above, forced the king to heed St. Vladislav’s request. St. Savva’s relics were transferred with great solemnity to Mileshevo, and entombed. Soon thereafter, St. Savva appeared to one of his disciples and ordered that his body be placed, uncovered, in the church. The saint’s relics were removed from the tomb and placed in a wooden reliquary in the monastery church.
In the second half of the 16th Century, when the Turks finally took the Serbian lands, they also inflicted a great deal of damage to the Monastery. The monastery walls were brought down, but the monastery itself was quickly restored. Mileshevo probably suffered more than any of the other Serbian monasteries at the hands of the Turks, who during the 15th through 18th Centuries repeatedly burned and looted the monastery, rendering it desolate on more than one occasion.
In 1594, Sinan-Pasha took the relics of St. Savva, the greatest holy treasure of the Serbian people, and removed them to Belgrade, where he burned them on Vracar Hill. The relics of St. Vladislav, founder of Mileshevo, were hidden by the monks of Mileshevo Monastery, and to this day their location has not been discovered.
During World War II, Mileshevo found itself the center of tragic events. Under the cover of battle with the Italian Occupation, Tito’s partisans in that area terrorized their “ideological opponents,” first and foremost, the Orthodox clergy. Thus, on September 27, 1941, the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, the Communists killed Abbot Nestor (Trukulja) of Mileshevo. During the night, partisans broke into his cell, seized the monastery’s rector, took him into the woods, and shot him. Several days later, the monks found their rector’s body, and buried it next to the monastery. Following Abbot Nestor’s death, the monastery was rendered desolate.
In the 1950s, restoration of the frescoes was undertaken; archeological and restoration projects continued until 1996.
Currently, the monastery houses the residence of the Bishop of Mileshevo.
After visiting Mileshevo, we visited an open-air museum in the village of Sirogojno in the resort region of Zlatibor. A visit to this place allows the inquisitive traveler to go back one hundred years, and imagine how Serbian peasants lived in the 19th Century. In “Staro Selo” [i.e. “Old Town”], as the museum is known, there are lovingly restored wooden dwellings and farm structures, furniture and utensils, and everyday and festive clothing, from throughout the region. In contemporary jargon, the place is “ecologically pure.” The museum shops in “Staro Selo” sell goods whose quality is probably that of goods sole one hundred years ago – mead and rakija made from wild pears, medicinal herbs from the mountains, linden flowers, dried seet-brier, and wild strawberry preserves.