Everything about Mile Eva Monastery totally explained
Mileševa (
Serbian Cyrillic: Милешева) is a
Serbian Orthodox monastery located near
Prijepolje, in southwest
Serbia. It was founded by King
Vladislav, in the years between
1234 and
1236. The church has
frescoes by the most skillful artists of that time, including one of the most famous in Serbian culture, the "
White Angel", which depicts an angel on Christ's grave.
History
The Mileševa monastery was founded between
1234 and
1236 by Serbian King Vladislav. The monastery is situated in a valley of the
Mileševa river, near
Prijepolje. Mileševa is one of the most important Serbian sanctuaries and spiritual centers. In 1236, Vladislav moved the relics of his uncle
Saint Sava from
Trnovo in
Bulgaria, where he died, to Mileševa. The second important event took place in
1377, when the coronation of
Tvrtko I as the King of Serbia and
Bosnia took place in Mileševa. In the
fifteenth century, the monastery was the seat of the Metropolitan Bishopric of
Dabar and Bosnia. In
1459, the
Turks set the monastery on fire, but it was soon restored. In the first half of the
sixteenth century, the first service books were illuminated in Mileševa. One of the oldest schools also existed in the monastery. In the middle of the century, during the time of
Patriarch Makarije (the
Serbian Patriarchate was restored in
1557), the monastery was thoroughly renovated. Its exoternal narthex was built and painted, and probably cut through the wall between the narthex and the nave. In later times, after several Turkish demolitions, a new restoration was undertaken in
1863, when the church considerably changed in appearance.
The Mileševa monastery has been visited by pilgrims and donated to by
Russian Emperors (
Ivan IV the Terrible) and
Valachian and
Moldavian rulers. In
1594, the Turks removed the relics of
St. Sava from the monastery and publicly burned them on
Vračar hill in
Belgrade, making him thus a posthumous
martyr.
Architecture
The Church, dedicated to the
Ascension of Our Lord, architecturally belongs to the
Raška School. Its ground plan is unique. Its single nave widens from the west eastward, so that the eastern bay is omitted completely, which results in the three altar apses leaning directly on the domed east wall. Inside, the dome is raised on several arches in a stairway-like arrangement. The narthex was added in
1236 upon which, during a
nineteenth century restoration, a dome was constructed on top.
Art
The first group of frescoes were produced in the
1230s. The other groups include works from the Turkish period, to be found in the exonarthex. These
thirteenth century frescoes may be considered to be the supreme achievement of all the painting in
Europe of that time. The portraiture deals with
bishops (
altar space),
warrior saints and martyrs (
nave), as well as
monks (
narthex). The upper registers in the narthex represent
Christ's earthly life. Below the resurrection composition on the south wall of the west bay, King Vladislav is depicted as being led to Christ by the
Mother of God. The
Nemanjić family is portrayed in the northeastern part of the narthex:
Stefan Nemanja as the monk Simeon,
Sava as the first
archbishop,
Stefan the First-Crowned as king, and his sons
Radoslav and Vladislav. The frescoes in the narthex and the adjacent chapel were presumably painted in the 1230s and
1240s. They illustrate the
last Judgment and the lives of some saints. In the second half of the sixteenth century, the church was repainted with a new layer of frescoes of which only fragments of the
Last Supper under the dome and the
Forty Martyrs in the north choir have survived. These frescoes were damaged in a fire, but they happened to save (acting as a protective layer) the earlier and more valuable paintings from the thirteenth century.
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