Monastery Djurdjevi Stupovi Celebrates 800th Anniversary This Weekend
3/8/13
PODGORICA – The Serbian Orthodox Church monastery Djurdjevi Stupovi, near Berane, northern Montenegro, will celebrate its 800th anniversary this weekend, and the ceremony will be attended by Serbian Orthodox Patriarch Irinej Prime Minister Ivica Dacic and Montenegro’s President Filip Vujanovic, Tanjug reported.
A formal ceremony will be held on Saturday, followed by a liturgy on Sunday.
Irinej, Dacic and Vujanovic will then address the crowd.
Djurdjevi Stupovi is one of the monasteries in Montenegro that used to serve as a spiritual centre in the Serbs’ struggle for freedom from the Ottoman rule.
The monastery was built in 1213 by feudal lord Prvoslav Nemanjic, a relative of Stefan Nemanja, the first ruler of the Nemanjic dynasty, which ruled Serbia during the time of its greatest power in the Middle Ages.
Serbia’s first archbishop, St Sava, established the Diocese of Budimlje, one of the 7 dioceses of the Serbian Orthodox Church, in Djurdjevi Stupovi in 1219.
The monastery was demolished and torched by the Turks 5 times between the 18th and 20th century, but it was rebuilt every time.
