Krka monastery

Serbian Orthodox monastery in Croatia

The Krka Monastery (, ; ) is a Serbian Orthodox monastery dedicated to the Archangel Michael, located near the river Krka, east of Kistanje, in central Dalmatia, Croatia. It is the best known monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Croatia and it is officially protected as part of the Krka National Park. It was established around 1577 or later on the ground of previous Gothic Romanesque style Catholic church.

The monastery was built on top of an Ancient Roman site. Roman burial catacombs, Romanesque belfry, According to most recent synthesis of archaeological, architectural, conservation restoration research, the monastery's church has three building phases; a late medieval, from a second half of the 16th century, and from the 1780s. The construction of monastery's buildings began in the second half of the 16th century with eight additions and seven upgrades until the 1980s. At the site were found many walls beneath the earth which ground plan was much bigger than of the current monastery, stones from Roman times, as well as graves and artifacts from the Roman and late medieval ages. The most significant finding useful for the dating of the late medieval church is a fragment of a profiled Gothic frame with the remains of a rosette which was found in a wall under a layer of cement mortar. As it is almost the same to the frame and rosette found at the Catholic church of St. Mary and Franciscan monastery in Bribir (founded in the late 13th early 14th century, with various building works done in 15th century), it shows they were produced from the same workshop (of Zadar or Šibenik), in the same time period and the building was possibly related to the Šubić family. According to the common folk story about the foundation of the Orthodox monastery, claimed by the Serb Orthodox eparchy's clergy, it was founded in 1345 or 1350 when it is listed as an endowment of Serbian princess Jelena Nemanjić Šubić, half sister of the Serbian emperor Dušan and wife of Mladen III Šubić Bribirski (not Mladen the II), Croatian duke of Skradin and Bribir. However, the claim is a baseless late 19th century forgery, made up and published by Serb Orthodox Bishop of Dalmatia Nikodim Milaš in his article Iz prošlosti pravoslavne crkve u Dalmaciji (From the history of Orthodox Church in Dalmatia, 1900) and Pravoslavna Dalmacija (Orthodox Dalmatia, 1901), in which, popular to the period and related to Greater Serbia ideology, were forged various claims about pre Ottoman presence of Serbs in Dalmatia. In no previous official Serb Orthodox schematism such a claim can be found and in all there is a conclusion that there is no historical information about the foundation. Neither both Croatian and Serbian historians and archaeologists of the epoch mention such a claim. As archaeological forgery was also confirmed an epigraphic inscription with supposed date of 1402 written in Arabic alphabet or Arabic numbers and dating which is uncommon for Greek East Orthodox style, showing originally instead 1702 related to protopop Lazo Lazarićević, and that the fabrication was made by archimandrite Jerotije Kovačević in 1859; and alleged inscription from 1422 which should be originally dated to 1782. The earliest source mentioning the Christian church or monastery would be from 1458 by dragoman Cosmo Calavri Imberti, in which is mentioned certain monk Pahomije (lat. Pachomius). Ottoman census in 1550 show existence of the Church of St. Michael. According to the document by Gavrilo Avramović in 1578, seemingly it was independent from the metropolitan seat under Serbian Patriarchate of Peć. According to some sources, including monastery engravings, the Orthodox monastery was most probably founded in 1577, while according to others can be only certainly dated since mid 17th century. Considering that until the mid second half of the 16th century there were chaotic political and poor economical conditions for making substantial construction interventions on a late medieval church, the building and foundation of the Orthodox monastery can be dated as early as possible in 1570s (and according to an alleged document, the earliest mention of construction works would be from 1601). At the beginning of the Cretan War (1645–1669), specifically in 1647, the monastery's clergy was anti Ottoman and in the Venetian service because of which it was attacked and plundered by the Ottomans. The monks who fled, declared as Croats and Catholics who "live in the service of the Greek Church of the old Illyrian or Croatian language", and found shelter in Zadar, where pope Innocent X in 1655 gave them two churches, that had previously been in possession of Franciscans of the Third Order, named "Glagolitians" (глагољаши, glagoljaši). Some claim that the supposed Orthodox monks who fled founded Gomirje monastery in Gorski kotar, leaving Krka monastery abandoned for a long time until it was rebuilt in around 1787 by archimandrite Nikador Bogunović. After Operation Storm in 1995 the monastery was looted, but not significantly, as it was protected by the Croatian authorities (police), abandoned, and the seminary shut down and relocated to Divčibare and, later, Foča. The monks returned in 1999, and the seminary reopened in 2001.

The belltower of this monastery was built in the Romanesque style. Other monastery buildings from the 18th–19th century, the church, and the belfry are situated around a rectangular cloister with arcades. The complex also includes a chapel of Saint Sava built in the 19th century, under the tutelage of the Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Dalmatia Stefan Knežević, as well as a new building of the seminary and an additional dormitory building. The monastery has its archives and a library with a variety of ancient books and valuable items from the 14th to the 20th century, a collection of icons from the 15th and 18th century, silverware, embroideries and else, but a good part of it was moved in the 1990s to Serbia.