Lepavina Monastery
Encyclopedia
Lepavina is a monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

 in the village of Lepavina, near the town of Koprivnica
Koprivnica
Koprivnica is a city in northern Croatia. It is the capital of the Koprivnica-Križevci county. In 2011 the city administrative area had a total population of 30,872, with 23,896 in the city itself.-Population:...

 in the Republic of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

. It is dedicated to the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Presentation of Mary
The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary , or The Entry of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple , is a liturgical feast celebrated by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Catholic, and Orthodox Churches....

.

From the Beginning Until World War II

According to an old local chronicle, the Lepavina monastery was founded around 1550, very soon after the emergence of the first Serbian
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 settlements in this region. A monk from the Hilandar
Hilandar
Hilandar Monastery is a Serbian Orthodox monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. It was founded in 1198 by the first Serbian Archbishop Saint Sava and his father, Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja of the medieval Serbian principality of Raška...

 Monastery (on the Athos
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in Macedonia, Greece. A World Heritage Site, it is home to 20 Eastern Orthodox monasteries and forms a self-governed monastic state within the sovereignty of the Hellenic Republic. Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the...

 peninsula, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

), Jefrem (Ephraim) Vukodabović, born in Herzegovina
Herzegovina
Herzegovina is the southern region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. While there is no official border distinguishing it from the Bosnian region, it is generally accepted that the borders of the region are Croatia to the west, Montenegro to the south, the canton boundaries of the Herzegovina-Neretva...

, together with two monks from Bosnia
Bosnia (region)
Bosnia is a eponomous region of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It lies mainly in the Dinaric Alps, ranging to the southern borders of the Pannonian plain, with the rivers Sava and Drina marking its northern and eastern borders. The other eponomous region, the southern, other half of the country is...

, built a wooden church here. They were soon joined by several other monks and the institution, according to the chronicle, acquired the status of a monastery.

In August of 1557, Turks and the Islamized inhabitants of Stupčanica, Pakrac and Bijela, under the leadership of Zarep-Agha Ali, burnt down the church and the monastic buildings, four monks were killed and two taken to slavery.

In 1598 Hieromonk
Hieromonk
Hieromonk , also called a Priestmonk, is a monk who is also a priest in the Orthodox Church and Eastern Catholicism....

 Gregory, also from the Hilandar Monastery, came to Lepavina with two monks from the Mileševa Monastery
Mileševa monastery
Mileševa is a Serbian Orthodox monastery located near Prijepolje, in southwest Serbia. It was founded by King Vladislav, in the years between 1234 and 1236...

, and they re-established the monastic community and rebuilt the edifices. In 1630 the Orthodox
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...

 population of this region, due to their constant involvement in the fights against the Turks and their allies, received great privileges, which created the conditions for building activity on a larger scale.

Archimandrite
Archimandrite
The title Archimandrite , primarily used in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic churches, originally referred to a superior abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise...

 Visarion (Bessarion) came to Lepavina in 1635 to become the head of the community, and under his auspices in 1636-1642 a larger monastery complex developed.

In June of 1642 Count Johannes Galler confirmed the rights of the monastery to all the possessions donated by the dwellers of Branjska and Sesvečani. The same was done in charters by Baron Sigmund von Eibiswald, Voivode Gvozden with Đorđe Dobrojević, Blaže Pejašinović and Voivode Radovan (5 February 1644), Baron Honorius von Trauttmansdorff (10 July 1644) and Count Georg Ludwig von Schwarzenberg (23 November 1644).

History of the Lepavina Monastery is inseparable from history of the Serbs in the Varaždin
Varaždin
Varaždin is a city in north Croatia, north of Zagreb on the highway A4. The total population is 47,055, with 38,746 on of the city settlement itself . The centre of Varaždin county is located near the Drava river, at...

 Generalat
Military Frontier
The Military Frontier was a borderland of Habsburg Austria and later the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which acted as the cordon sanitaire against incursions from the Ottoman Empire...

, who identified with Orthodoxy and mostly defied the union with the Roman Catholic Church. The monks took part in the conflicts of the local population against the social injustice: in 1666 they suffered in the great uprising led by the Križevci judge Osmokruhović, and in 1672, together with the monks of the Gomirje Monastery (14 men in total), they were sentenced to galley slavery and sent to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

. On 24 November 1715 (13 November according to the Julian style) Hegumen
Hegumen
Hegumen, hegumenos, igumen, or ihumen is the title for the head of a monastery of the Eastern Orthodox Church or Eastern Catholic Churches, similar to the one of abbot. The head of a convent of nuns is called hegumenia or ihumenia . The term means "the one who is in charge", "the leader" in...

 (Abbot) Kodrat (Quadratus) was shot dead at the threshold of the monastery church, which was a consequence of conflicts with neighbouring Uniate (Greek Catholic) clergy.

At the end of 1692 and the beginning of 1693, Lepavina hosted Serbian Patriarch
Patriarch
Originally a patriarch was a man who exercised autocratic authority as a pater familias over an extended family. The system of such rule of families by senior males is called patriarchy. This is a Greek word, a compound of πατριά , "lineage, descent", esp...

 of Peć, Arsenije (Arsenius) III Čarnojević
Arsenije III Carnojevic
Arsenije III Čarnojević was the Archbishop of Peć and Patriarch of Serbs from 1674 to 1691 and Metropolitan of Szentendre from 1691 to his death in 1706.-Family:Arsenije was born to the Cetinje clan of Old Montenegro...

 (or Crnojević). He was gathering the local Orthodox people and preaching, and also visiting the local voivodes of Krajina, which enhanced the reputation of the abbey. After the Orthodox Monastery of Marča was handed over to the Greek Catholics, Lepavina became the major centre of Orthodoxy in the region.

In 1734 the Orthodox population of the Varaždin Generalat succeeded in obtaining the permission to have their own Orthodox bishop – the Greek Catholic bishop received as his headquarters the recently seized Monastery of Marča, while Lepavina was assigned as the residence of the new Orthodox bishop. However, because of Lepavina’s peripheral position, the final seat of the Orthodox bishopric became Severin
Severin, Bjelovar-Bilogora County
Severin is a village and a municipality in Bjelovar-Bilogora County, Croatia. There are a total of 1,038 inhabitants, of which 85% are Croats. The village of Severin has 638 inhabitants, and the village of Orovac has 400.-References:...

, while the diocese was called the Eparchy of Lepavina and Severin. The first bishop of Lepavina and Severin, Simeon (Filipović) was buried in Lepavina – he died in the investigative custody in Koprivnica, which was yet another consequence of gradual imposition of the church Union on the local Orthodox.

Although life under Empress Maria Theresa
Maria Theresa of Austria
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...

 was not easy for the Orthodox – for a short time Orthodoxy was even declared illicit, and the Lepavina Monastery should have become Greek Catholic – the still-standing monastery church was built in the mid-18th century. The project was realised under the guidance of Nikola Popović, the former ‘protopresbyter
Clergy
Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given religion. A clergyman, churchman or cleric is a member of the clergy, especially one who is a priest, preacher, pastor, or other religious professional....

 of Croatia’ and parish priest of Pisanica, where he also had built a nice church. Nikola took the vows and became the archimandrite of Lepavina with the name Nikifor (Nicephorus). On 25 March 1753 the completed Baroque church was consecrated by Arsenije (Arsenius, Teofanović) the Bishop of Kostajnica
Hrvatska Kostajnica
Hrvatska Kostajnica, often just Kostajnica, is a small town in central Croatia. It is located on the Una river in the Sisak-Moslavina county, south of Petrinja and Sisak and across the river from Bosanska Kostajnica in Bosnia and Herzegovina.-History:...

 and Zrinopolje, who resided mainly in Severin.

World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 was especially difficult period. Immediately after the occupation, the brethren were arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Hieromonk Joakim (Joachim, Babić) was killed and the others were deported to Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

. On 27 October 1943 the monastery was bombarded, monastic buildings were almost completely destroyed, while the church and the dormitory were heavily damaged. Nevertheless, in the part of the dormitory that escaped destruction, the part of the monastery library remained intact and was appropriated by the Greek Catholic clergy.

After World War II

After the war, the only inhabitant of the monastery was Father Simeon (Sakulj), who partially renovated it and returned the usurped property. By the efforts of Metropolitan
Metropolitan bishop
In Christian churches with episcopal polity, the rank of metropolitan bishop, or simply metropolitan, pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of a historical Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital.Before the establishment of...

 Jovan (John, Pavlović) of Zagreb and Ljubljana, who became the head of the diocese in 1977, the monastery regained the old glory and importance. The connection with the Hilandar Monastery was revived in 1984, when monk Gavrilo (Gabriel, Vučković) came from there and became Lepavina’s hegumen and finally archimandrite.

The monastery was renovated with the help of the World Council of Churches
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of 349 global, regional and sub-regional, national and local churches seeking unity, a common witness and Christian service. It is a Christian ecumenical organization that is based in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland...

, the Evangelisches Jugendwerk from Württemberg
Württemberg
Württemberg , formerly known as Wirtemberg or Wurtemberg, is an area and a former state in southwestern Germany, including parts of the regions Swabia and Franconia....

 and the members of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church
Evangelical Church in Germany
The Evangelical Church in Germany is a federation of 22 Lutheran, Unified and Reformed Protestant regional church bodies in Germany. The EKD is not a church in a theological understanding because of the denominational differences. However, the member churches share full pulpit and altar...

 from Stuttgart
Stuttgart
Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

.

Thanks to the ardent work of Father Gavrilo (Vučković), the spiritual life is on the rise: there are several brethren and novices, the journal Put, Istina i Život (‘The Way, the Truth, and the Life’) is published, and the monastery is an extremely popular destination for pilgrims, not only from Croatia, but from the whole Europe, and even from the other continents. It is visited by streams of Orthodox and Roman Catholic believers, as well as by those who are looking for the answers to some spiritual questions or help in adversities. Lepavina serves as a bridge in the new dialogue of love between the Eastern and Western Churches, the old dissensions are being forgotten and the new atmosphere of mutual understanding and true deeper rapprochement is being created.

The Monastery Treasures

The monastery is proud of its wonder-working icon of the Mother of God that makes it such an important pilgrimage site. It is painted in the Creto-Venetian style from the beginning of the 16th century. It is not known how it came to the monastery, but the local tradition asserts it was here when the monastic community was in its infancy.

One of the features of interest was the iconostasis from 1775, a work by one of the best representatives of the Serbian early Baroque, Jovan Četirević-Grabovan, destroyed during World War II, with only three pictures remaining. Besides these, the monastery keeps the icons of St Simeon Nemanja
Stefan Nemanja
Stefan Nemanja was the Grand Prince of the Grand Principality of Serbia from 1166 to 1196, a heir of the Vukanović dynasty that marked the beginning of a greater Serbian realm .He is remembered for his contributions to Serbian culture and...

, St Sava
Saint Sava
Saint Sava was a Serbian Prince and Orthodox monk, the first Archbishop of the autocephalous Serbian Church, the founder of Serbian law and literature, and a diplomat. Sava was born Rastko Nemanjić , the youngest son of Serbian Grand Župan Stefan Nemanja , and ruled the appanage of Hum briefly in...

and the icon of the Entry into the Temple of the Most Holy Mother of God (ie. the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary), all painted in Lepavina in 1647.

Especially valuable are the manuscripts and old printed books. Among the oldest are the two Tetraevangelia from the 13th and 14th centuries, one of the Serbian-Raška and the other of the Macedonian recensions, both with exquisite initials. As Lepavina served as an elementary school for attaining literacy and other skills, a lot of written material and copied books were deposited here.

Sources and Further Reading

On the Monastery
  • Čuda presvete Bogorodice Lepavinske (The Miracles of the Icon of Theotokos of Lepavina). Ed. V. Srbljan. Sokolovac: Manastir Lepavina, 2000.
  • Gavrilović, S. Iz istorije Srba u Hrvatskoj, Slavoniji i Ugarskoj: XV-XIX vek (From the History of the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Hungary: 15th-18th Centuries). Belgrade: Filip Višnjić, 1993.
  • Kašić, D. Srpski manastiri u Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji (Serbian Monasteries in Croatia and Slavonia). Belgrade: Srpska patrijaršija, 1971.
  • Krasić, V. Manastir Lepavina: prilog k srpskoj istoriji (The Monastery of Lepavina: A Contribution to the Serbian History). Novi Sad: Srpska štamparija dra Svetozara Miletića, 1889.


On the Art of the Monastery
  • Jovanović, M. “Jovan Četirević Grabovan,” Zbornik za likovne umetnosti 1 (1965), 199-222.
  • Mileusnić, S. “Slikar Ostoja Mrkojević i njegova ikonopisačka dela” (Painter Ostoja Mrkojević and His Iconographic Works), Zbornik za likovne umetnosti 21 (1985), 353-368.
  • Mileusnić, S. “Vizantina u crkvenom slikarstvu Slavonije” (Byzantine Legacy in the Church Painting of Slavonia), Zbornik Matice srpske za likovne umetnosti 34/35 (2003), 19-29.


On the History of the Orthodox Church and Serbs in Croatia
  • Gavrilović, S. Srbi u Ugarskoj, Slavoniji i Hrvatskoj, u borbama protiv Turaka od XV do XVIII veka (The Serbs in Hungary, Slavonia and Croatia in the Fighting Against the Turks from the 15th to the 18th Century). Belgrade: Nova, SANU, Balkanološki institut, 1993.
  • Gavrilović, S. “Unijaćenje Srba u Hrvatskoj, Slavoniji i Baranji (XVI-XVIII vek),” (Converting the Serbs in Croatia, Slavonia and Baranja to Roman Catholicism: 16th-18th centuries), Srpski narod van granica današnje SR Jugoslavije od kraja XV veka do 1914. godine. Ed. Dragutin Ranković. Belgrade: Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, 1996, 37-47.
  • Grujić, R. M. Marčanska unija i unija u Žumberku (The Church Unions of Marča and Žumberak). Sremski Karlovci: Patrijaršiska štamparija, 1938.
  • Grujić, R. M. Propast manastira Marče – po arhivskim podacima (The Downfall of the Marča Monastery – According to the Archival Materials). Zagreb: Štampa Srpske štamparije, 1908.
  • Kaser, K. Freier Bauer und Soldat: Die Militarisierung der agrarischen Gesellschaft an der kroatisch-slawonischen Militärgrenze (1535-1881) (A Yeoman and a Soldier: The Militarization of the Agrarian Society in the Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier, 1535-1881). Vienna: Böhlau, 1997.
  • Kašić, D. Otpor Marčanskoj uniji: Lepavinsko-severinska eparhija (The Resistance to the Church Union of Marča: The Diocese of Lepavina-Severin). Belgrade: Pravoslavlje, 1986.
  • Kašić, D. Srbi i pravoslavlje u Slavoniji i sjevernoj Hrvatskoj (Serbs and Orthodoxy in Slavonia and Northern Croatia). Zagreb: Savez udruženja pravoslavnog sveštenstva SR Hrvatske, 1967.
  • Kašić, D. Srpska naselja i crkve u sjevernoj Hrvatskoj i Slavoniji (Serbian Settlements and Churches in Northern Croatia and Slavonia). Zagreb: Eparhijski upravni odbor, 2004.
  • Pribićević, A. Naseljavanje Srba po Hrvatskoj i Dalmaciji (Settlement of the Serbs in Croatia and Dalmatia). Zagreb: Zajednica Srba u Hrvatskoj, 2000.
  • Roksandić, D. Srbi u Hrvatskoj: od 15. stoljeća do naših dana (Serbs in Croatia from the 15th Century to Our Time). Zagreb: Vjesnik, 1991.
  • Schwicker, J. H. “Zur Geschichte der kirchlichen Union in der Croatischen Militärgrenze. Eine geschichtliche Studie nach den Acten des Archives der ehemaligen königlich ungarischen Hofkanzlei” (On the History of the Church Union in the Croatian Military Frontier. A Historical Study According to the Archival Records of the Former Royal Hungarian Court Chancellery), Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 52 (1874), 275-400.
  • Zbornik o Srbima u Hrvatskoj (Collected Papers on the Serbs in Croatia). 4 vols. Ed. V. Krestić. Belgrade: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, 1989, 1991, 1995, 1999.
  • Zbornik radova o povijesti i kulturi srpskog naroda u Socijalističkoj Republici Hrvatskoj (Collected Papers on the History and Culture of the Serbian People in the Socialist Republic of Croatia). Zagreb: JAZU, Zavod za povijesne znanosti. 1988.

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