Drača Monastery

Drača Monastery (Serbian Cyrillic: Манастир Драча) is a Serbian Orthodox institution situated in the village of Drača near Kragujevac, Serbia.Built in 1734 while most of Serbia was still under the proverbial Turkish yoke makes Drača an important Serbian Orthodox Church monastery.

Drača Monastery belongs to the Eparchy of Šumadija of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is located ten kilometers west of Kragujevac, in the valley of the Dračka river, on the slopes of the hill Rujevica. The church of the monastery is dedicated to the transfer of the relics of St. Nicholas. The monastery complex represents an immovable cultural asset as a cultural monument of great importance.

History

According to the founder's inscription above the entrance door in the nave, the church was built in 1734 by the captain of Kragujevac Mlatišuma, and according to legend, on the site of the current church there was a medieval church built in the late 14th century.

In support of the claim that it is only a matter of renovating the monastery and that the temple is frescoed again, historical writings mention some clergymen who lived in the monastery before the renovation, as well as traces of an older layer of frescoes found in minor research on frescoes in the church. Drača is also known by the Turkish censuses of the 16th century, as the monastery of St. Nicholas near the village of Drača in the nahija Lepenica.

Entrance to the complex of the Drača Monastery

During the 18th and 19th centuries, the monastery was an important spiritual and cultural center of this part of Serbia. At the time of Kočina Krajina, the monks of Drača were on the side of Austria, so Koča Andjelković himself hid in it for a while, which is why the monastery was severely damaged. Abbot Isaija Popović was awarded a monetary award in 1791 for his services to Austria and remained on its territory. Somewhat later, in the first half of the 19th century, Toma Vučić Perišić renovated the monastery lodgings and built a two-storey bell tower in the western part of the church. The abbot of the monastery, Maksim Jovanović, appeared in Belgrade in 1818, as a subscriber to a historical book. For several years, in the third and fourth decades of the 19th century, Drača was a secular church, and in 1845 it fell under the administration of the Vraćevšnica monastery, and was in that status until 1851. From its founding until 1958, Drača was a male monastery. Since 1958, when the abbess Jelena (Jokić) took over the administration, Drača has been a nunnery. Matrona Bajović was a nun of this monastery.

Jovan Dimitrijević Dobrača, commander of the Serbian army in the Battle of Ljubić, was buried in the churchyard of the monastery.

Church architecture

Appearance: The monastery church is a building renovated on triconch remains and with its conception, layout and decorative facade, it belongs to the Morava School, with a clearly defined narthex, nave and altar space. The church is built on all sides with properly hewn squares of yellowish sandstone, combined with brick, which alternate to the roof cornice. A combination of stone, brick and whitewash was installed in the upper part.

Choral apses are placed on the sides, which protrude in a semicircle in the plane of the longitudinal walls. The church has an octagonal dome, above the central space, supported by pilasters and a narthex vaulted with a semicircular vault, which is accepted on the north and south sides by broken arches. On the south side is the acrosolium with the tomb sarcophagus of the Venerable Job. In the 19th century, a two-storey tower with a baroque bell tower was added on the west side, which was placed over a small porch with large arched openings, vaulted with a cross vault. The entrance portal is with a painted lunette and a fresco of St. Nicholas.

Painting

The frescoes of the Drača monastery are invaluable. The church was painted in 1735, which is noted in the inscription above the entrance. Completely preserved frescoes are among the best paintings from the first half of the 18th century in Serbia and are attributed to painters from Moscopole.

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