Gornjak monastery

Gornjak monastery

The Gornjak Monastery lies on a smaller, extended plateau of the Mlava in the Gornjak gorge. It leans against the stone cliffs of Ježevac, under which the Mlava flows, rapid and clear.

A motel was built on the opposite side of the river.

The monastery is the endowment of Duke Lazar, and was built between 1379 and 1381. Thanks to its convenient position, as being outside the main transit routes of the time, it "outlived Kosovo" for exactly seven decades.

After the construction, the monastery was significantly damaged by Raič Branković, whose rule in Braničevo was taken over by Duke Lazar Hrebeljanović. And after the final fall of the Serbian state in 1459, under Turkish rule, Gornjak experienced both great destruction and renewal.

According to the preserved records, it is certain that in 1733 monastery had its own parish with 99 homes. It is known that it was destroyed and rebuilt twice in the Turkish period. Gornjak suffered the most difficult fate during the Second World War, when the Germans burned it down. At that time, many valuables that the monastery kept were destroyed (the charter of Duke Lazar and the flag of Tsar Dušan among the others). After the liberation, it was renovated and extended.

Today's Gornjak monastery bears little resemblance of the old monastery church, but it lies on its old foundations. In fact, the real monastery was built in a cave, above the present one, which was later built on a lower plateau. What presents the special value of this monastery are the picturesque inner walls bearing masterpieces of woodcarving and the iconostasis from the 19th century.