Bishop Artemije with his monks in front of the tomb of Fr. Justin Popovic, Celije Monastery

On this occasion the Information Service of the Diocese of Raska and Prizren wishes Protosindjel Simeon and his brethren a blessed beginning in their spiritual life and work with the wish that the  monastery of Banjska is fully renewed as soon and possible and shines in its medieval beauty and glory.

Thousands of Orthodox faithful from Kosovo and Metohija and other parts of Serbia and Montenegro gathered to celebrate the renewal of the monastery of Banjska, the endowment of Holy King Milutin

MONASTERIES AND CHURCHES OF KOSOVO AND METOHIJA

BANJSKA (KOSOVSKA MITROVICA)

The monastery of Banjska with its church dedicated to St. Stefan was built between 1313-17 as the endowment of the Serbian King Stefan Uros II Milutin, one of the most powerful rulers of the dynasty of Nemanjic and one of the most powerful rulers in the Balkans of his time. Milutin intended to be entombed in the church at Banjska and that is where he was first buried. However, after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 his body was first transferred to Trepca and then in 1460 to Sofia, Bulgaria, where it is still located.

The monastery shared the fate of the body of its patron. A monumental edifice containing a church, refectory, library, dormitories and "imperial palace", the demise of Banjska began very early: at the beginning of the 15th century, a fire swallowed its books and by the second half of that century the monastery was probably already inactive. Travel writer Kuripesic wrote that the sultan ordered the monastery destroyed in the 16th century because Christians fleeing from Turkish enslavement were gathering in it.

The almost completely destroyed church of St. Stefan was adapted and turned into a mosque in the 19th century and served as such until World War I. The church was conserved for the first time in 1939 and a second time in 1990 when a partial reconstruction was done.

The monastery of Banjska is one of the rare monasteries with a preserved founding charter. According to this document, we know that upon its founding the monastery received an enormous estate that included 75 villages and 8 katuns with fish ponds, mills and apiaries.

Since the monastery was to be the location of an imperial tomb, the diocese was discontinued and the monastery proclaimed a stavropigion - an Imperial Lavra, the fourth in importance in the land (after Studenica, Milesevo and Sopocani). The construction was supervised by Abbot Danilo, later Serbian Archbishop Danilo II, a close associate and confidant of the king, a writer, man of great knowledge and sophisticated taste.

According to medieval sources and folklore, Banjska was known as one of the most beautiful of Serbian monasteries. It was built according to the clean Raska school architectural concept universally applied in the building of royal mausoleums from the monastery of Studenica of Stefan Nemanja to the monastery of Holy Archangels of the Emperor Dusan.

It was the specific wish of King Milutin that Banjska be built according to the model of the monastery of Studenica. Thus, the church has the shape of a single nave basilica with a blind cupola. The east apse is semispherical and exceptionally monumental. The area under the done is flanked by choir areas at the same height as the main name and only slightly protruding from the main wall. The entrance to the church from the west side was also emphasized in the Raska style by two monumental domes.

The chief decoration of the exterior was multicolored cut stone in ochre, russet and gray which lined the facade. Multicolored cut squares arranged in chessboard fashion created an impression of saturated polychromy. In the tradition of Romanesque stylization the decorative facade was combined with architectural plastic art, which decorated the door posts, window frames and the arches above the portal. The arch was once adorned by the monumental sitting figure of the Mother of God with the Christ child in her lap executed in the manner in which Raska artists interpreted the Western styles of the Romanesque and Gothic. This statue of the Mother of God is today protected in the church of the monastery of Sokolica, not far from the monastery of Banjska, while parts of the stone decoration of the monastery facade are located in the National Museum in Belgrade, the Archeological Museum in Skoplje and pieces have been built into buildings in the villages around Banjska.

The pride of Banjska was the famous "gold of Banjska" sung about in epic songs and described in contemporary annals. It consisted of thin leaves of gold which lined the background of the frescoes, also following the model of the mausoleums of previous rulers: the monasteries of Studenica, Milesevo and Sopocani. All that is left of these frescoes today are a few faded fragments.

Nothing remains of the other treasures - icons, manuscripts, silver, gilded and gold candlesticks, icon lamps, incense burners and choros (central chandelier) - with which the king endowed his endowment, according to his biographer, Danilo II. The only discoveries of valuable jewelry were found by chance in 1915 during World War I in the tomb of Queen Teodora, the first wife of King Stefan of Decani and the mother of the Emperor Dusan. These were two gold rings, one decorated with an antic cameo, the second depicting a two-headed eagle and bearing the inscription: "Whoever wears it, God help him." The first ring is owned today by the family of the well-known collector Ljubomir Nedeljkovic and the second is kept in the National Museum in Belgrade.